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AUTHORITY 



THE FUNCTION OF AUTHORITY IN LIFE 

AND ITS RELATION TO LEGALISM 

IN ETHICS AND RELIGION 



BY 

A. v. C. P. HUIZINGA 

u 

Author of "Belief in a Personal God" 
"The American Philosophy Pragmatism'* 
" The Authority of Might and Right," etc. 



" Without authority— the objective norm of truth and value— 
and faith— repose in it as our immediate standard— life could 
not well be lived. Is it not strange, therefore, that those who 
are willing slaves to the idols of our day should clamor for free- 
dom from all restraint, and raise an outcry against all legitimate 
authority ?" 




BOSTON 

SHERMAN, FRENCH & COMPANY 

1911 



\\1 



o<\ 



Copyright, 1911 
Sherman, French &* Company 



CIA305191 



TO 
DR. FRANCIS L. PATTON 

PRINCETON'S ABLE AND INSPIRING 
DEFENDER OF THE CALVINISTIC FAITH 

THESE PAGES ARE GRATEFULLY 
INSCRIBED 



PREFACE 

In the following pages is presented a general 
survey of the subject of authority. The author 
has gone afield to bring out authority's func- 
tion in life with special reference to legalism in 
ethics and religion. Law brooks no interfer- 
ence. Though God's law needs no vindication 
by the evidence of impending penalties and re- 
wards, its vindication is written upon the heart 
of man with unmistakable anticipations. Hu- 
man law and prevailing custom require con- 
formity by force. This outward conformity, 
however, pre-supposes at least the capacity, 
and the law aims at a willingness of the 
individual to follow its prescribed course or rule. 
This is done on authority, in faith. We believe 
in the thing prescribed, recommended, enjoined. 
The community as a whole endorses the regula- 
tions in force over its individuals or members. 
It is not a matter which is reasoned out, or ra- 
tionally justified. It is done for us, we accept 
its right, recognize its authority, we believe, we 
exercise faith. 

This is individual activity, operating in so- 
ciety, it has metaphysical implications, and its 



PREFACE 

highest sanctions are found in the theological 
sphere. In the first part of this volume are 
especially treated the psychological and socio- 
logical ; in the second part, the metaphysical and 
theological aspect of authority. 

The discussion, moreover, has special refer- 
ence to the present trend of theological opinion. 
Quotations are numerous, though they are used 
as illustrations rather than as authority. Still, 
the weight of expert opinion, of course, may be 
used as corroborative evidence in argument. If 
this essay does not convince, it may at least 
clarify some notions regarding the subject; or, 
better still, it may occasion abler scholars to give 
it deserved attention. For one thing is certain: 
Authority must become the most vital question 
for an age which — rightly or wrongly — tends to 
challenge its established forms. 

A. v. C. P. Huizinga. 



CONTENTS 

PART I 
PSYCHOLOGICAL AND SOCIOLOGICAL ASPECT 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I. Authority and Liberty i 

II. Church and State 12 

III. Moral Authority 38 

IV. Moral Obligation 49 

V. The Personal Element in Law . . .55 

VI. Roman Catholicism and Freedom of 

Conscience 62 

VII. Legalism in Morals and Religion . . 71 

VIII. Individual Will 83 

IX. Authority and Philosophy .... 89 
X. Philosophies of the Day and Revealed 

Authority 96 

PART II 

METAPHYSICAL AND THEOLOGICAL ASPECT 

XI. Individualism and Legalism . . . .107 
XII. Sabatier's View of Authority . . .113 

XIII. Hegel's Doctrine of the State and Au- 

thority 124 

XIV. Authority and Fact 136 

XV. Bible Authority 143 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

XVI. An Objective Source of Authority . 167 
XVII. Pragmatism and Authority . . . .177 

XVIII. Faith and Authority 186 

XIX. Kant on Authority 195 

XX. Materialistic Tendencies and Ritsch- 

lianism 201 

XXI. Science and Faith 212 

XXII. Pragmatism Subversive of Authority . 221 

XXIII. Subjectivism and Truth 233 

XXIV. Needs and Utility 245 

XXV. The Source and Guarantee of Au- 
thority 261 



PART I 

PSYCHOLOGICAL AND 
SOCIOLOGICAL ASPECT 



CHAPTER I 
AUTHORITY AND LIBERTY 

It was quite characteristic of our age, and cer- 
tainly of the gathering assembled, when Dr. 
George A. Gordon raised a storm of approving 
applause at the International Congress of Re- 
ligious Liberals held in Boston, September 22-27, 
1907, with the remark "The loss sustained by 
the Christian world through the reign of author- 
ity is incalculable." It is said on every hand 
that for a true development of the inner life, one 
may not be subject to any outward restraint. 
We must strike out along our own lines, — not 
walk by chalk-marks, but according to our own 
nature. We are to be true to our own selves. 
Inasmuch as we ourselves are the acting party in 
all things, we are not to be determined by arbi- 
trary directions. The very idea of personality, 
of responsibility, of private initiative, of indi- 
vidual significance, the entire personal equation, 
opposes itself to any pressure of external re- 
straints. 

In ethical theories this individualism is repre- 
sented in the pleas for self-realization. The 
vague notion of self-realization, however, can 



2 AUTHORITY 

hardly become the basis of social relations and 
morals, if conceived according to the phrase 
which proclaims "society versus the individual," 
and always insists that corporate society is to a 
large extent incommensurable with personal in- 
dividuality. There is no allowance made for in- 
ter-determination, that the individual may be de- 
termined as well extrinsically as intrinsically; 
and again that these determinations sustain the 
closest relation each to the other is left out of ac- 
count. The atomistic conception of the indi- 
vidual is insisted upon. It has been said that 
this "mere individual" is an abstraction of logic, 
with which philosophy has burdened the world. 
It is, however, more correct to maintain that the 
notion of the isolated, separate individual has 
become persistently prominent in popular views. 
Professor James H. Tuft says in "The Indi- 
vidual and His Relation to Law and Institu- 
tions": "It is the merit of Hobbes to have set 
the individual in the forefront of discussion, and 
to have used him as the indispensable agency for 
the authorization of power." Hobbes' self, how- 
ever, is the self of war in which interests are ex- 
clusive, not the self of commerce in which they 
are mutual. Thus his self is not bound to the 
fellow individuals by anything except the civil 
authority, which by its police-duty calls out our 
individualistic ethics in conformity with it. 



AUTHORITY AND LIBERTY 3 

There is, however, an essentially social setting of 
the individual life. However much the abso- 
lutely personal element is centered in every in- 
dividual, however unique and one's own, yet each 
man realizes his personality among men as a so- 
cial being. The ethical and religious contents 
of man's life have been developed and have 
taken form historically in social relations. 
Saint Simon says : "Humanity is a collective be- 
ing which develops. It has grown from gener- 
ation to generation as a single man grows in 
successive years." (L'humanite est un etre col- 
lectif qui se developpe. Cet etre a grandi de 
generations en generations comme un seul 
homme grandit dans la succession des annees.) 
Condorcet expresses the same thought when he 
says: "The material and moral evolution of so- 
cieties forms a long and indissoluble chain to 
which the successive generations incessantly add 
links." (L'evolution materielle et morale des 
societes forme une longue et indissoluble chaine 
a la laquelle les generations successives ajoutent 
sans cesse des anneaux.") 

In modern literature the individual claims are 
prominently brought forward, and their indul- 
gence advocated at the expense of traditional so- 
cial restraints. "Self-realization" figures large 
as a motto in modern realism. Love overrides 
law. Even the passions should know no re- 



4 AUTHORITY 

straint. Insistently is dwelt on things as they 
are. With the Christian in weakness is 
strength; in realism its strength is its weakness, 
in that its passion for reality discards idealism 
to the extent of leaving us in a mass of dis- 
ordered, conflicting facts, the most faithful por- 
trayal of which will create only the most jarring 
discord. Whatever claims, therefore, the realis- 
tic schools may make as representative of an aes- 
thetic appreciation of life, it must be firmly 
maintained that they fail of that harmony which 
is required by the beautiful, just as they fail in 
that right proportion and emphasis which is re- 
quired by the truth. 

Authority always involves a ruling principle 
which subjects the individual to its regulations, 
though this need not necessarily involve the sup- 
pression of his natural functions. 

Liberty is a negative idea which denotes the 
absence of restraint. It cannot, therefore, be 
an aim in itself. It may be fully realized in the 
experience of the individual when he finds him- 
self entirely in accord with the codified, larger 
experience of society. Such a condition would 
exclude the possibility of conflict, and legislation 
ab extra would be superfluous. But this is prac- 
tically inconceivable either in single cases or 
among any people in general. On this account 
the dreams of anarchistic societies, which would 



AUTHORITY AND LIBERTY 5 

dispense with all laws, are purely ideal and could 
be realized only at the very end of social prog- 
ress. As an attainable social state, they are 
indeed "diablement ideal." 

It is equally evident, however, that neither 
laws nor governing bodies can be considered as 
ends in themselves, since they are simply a kind 
of tangible, objective medium of adjustment be- 
tween the single, individual life and the corpo- 
rate wisdom of longer and larger experience. 
As Fichte well remarked: 

"The state will ultimately end as will all human insti- 
tutions which are merely means ; the aim of all govern- 
ment is to make government superfluous." ("Der 
Staat geht, wie alle menschliche Institute, die blosse 
Mittel sind, auf seine eigene Vernichtung aus ; es ist 
der Zweck aller Regierung, die Regierung uberfliissig 
zu machen.") 

The alleged antithesis between individual life 
and social authority is as unwarranted as are the 
extreme claims for, and emphasis on their re- 
spective positions. The customary antitheses 
that we meet in every-day life tend to cause a 
certain one-sidedness which emphasizes one view 
at the expense of the other. The reaction from 
the old conception of "mankind in general," to 
which corresponded a "typical man," has left us 
only an aggregate of individuals. From the 



6 AUTHORITY 

fact that we do know social morality as an ob- 
jective code of observance (as public opinion, 
etc.) only from the individuals which constitute 
society, it has been wrongly inferred that the 
single individual by himself exemplifies the func- 
tions of man as in society; for, as Enrico Ferri 
says, "in psychological phenomena the union of 
several individuals never yields a result like that 
which one would expect from the sum of them 
severally." 

In a time of thorough sociological and psycho- 
logical study the capitalized and transmitted ex- 
periences and their unceasing re-actions upon the 
individual life are investigated. Thus we make 
use of such expressions as "social mind," "col- 
lective consciousness," "national spirit," "Zeit- 
geist," "public opinion," "conventionality," 
"folk-psychology," all of which are metaphors; 
pregnant meanings which cannot be explained 
by the phenomena of individual psychology. 
Of course the individual's consciousness is 
affected by the relation he bears to others. Pro- 
fessor Baldwin observes rightly, "Modern 
psychology as well as studies in religion and so- 
ciology demonstrate the interdependence of in- 
dividual and society," but "in ethical (and re- 
ligious) judgments the social sanction is admin- 
istered by the individual conscience." Mental 
Development, Chap. X. Although, therefore, 



AUTHORITY AND LIBERTY 7 

in Professor Baldwin's study in psychology the 
growth of the individual soul is traced in genetic 
method till all the essential features of the moral 
and religious man have appeared, he leaves the 
moral issues with the individual. Thus his valu- 
able prize essay, while clearing away the opposi- 
tion between society and the individual, vindi- 
cates a personal responsibility. 

It has often been asserted that there is no such 
thing as individual morality, and Roman Catho- 
lic scholars have charged against the Protestant 
position an extreme individualism, which is not 
held by the evangelical churches of Protestant- 
ism. The content of a strictly individual mor- 
ality or religion is indeed quite inconceivable. 
The content and form of moral and religious life 
are derived from the relations in which individ- 
uals are placed. The tendency, however, to 
seek the origin of the moral and religious life in 
the social relations under which it develops, is 
faulty. Scholars holding very different points 
of view agree that the moral sentiment, and 
therefore the religious impulse, is unanalyzable, 
not reducible to social effects. And though 
such genetic theories have often been supported 
by a large array of alleged facts, they have never 
proved to be convincing. 

The question is like the transferring of the 
emphasis in the Lord's command: "Thou shalt 



8 AUTHORITY 

love thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy 
soul and with all thy strength, and with all thy 
mind, and thy neighbor as thyself" (Luke x, 
27). The modern socializing tendency has 
shifted the emphasis from the first command, 
which is basal, and which in a sense includes the 
second. It begs the question by the conclusion 
that the resulting social morality is to be identi- 
fied with the loving of God, because it is the 
way in which to express itself. 

Professor H. Visscher gives expression to this 
idea in a recent work on comparative religion, 
"Religie en Gemeenschap by de natuurvolken" 
(Utrecht, 1907). While recognizing that our 
age rightly, to some extent, approaches religion 
as an organic development, especially in the 
field of comparative religion, he observes that 
most social facts that are codified expressions of 
social life, such as language, law, and customs, as 
well as the forms of religion, are not made by 
man, but have rather grown to be what they are. 

The analogy between the physical and psychi- 
cal, between matter and spirit, can never lead 
to an identification of the genetic processes of 
the two spheres, especially when there is an evi- 
dent inclination to subsume the spiritual under 
the material. The complex expression of re- 
ligious life is a result of the social life, and regu- 
lates the individual, who is, however, autono- 



AUTHORITY AND LIBERTY 9 

mous neither in language, law, morality, nor 
religion. All these expressions of social life go 
back to the psychic life of the individuals that 
compose society. Religio subjectiva concerns 
primarily man as man; it assumes social forms 
simply because man lives in society and thus fits 
in an organic whole. But it is a wholly wrong 
view that endeavors to explain religion and mor- 
ality in themselves as an outgrowth of social 
forms. If man is incurably religious, then we 
can hardly make religion and morality in its es- 
sence an epiphenomenon of social life. They 
rather cement and control social life. And this 
is the meaning which a Frenchman expressed in 
the words: "Le Saint Esprit c'est Dieu social." 
Even Spencer, though championing the cause 
of individualism under the phrase "man versus 
the state," freely admits the organic relation and 
natural interplay between the individual and the 
milieu in the midst of which he has grown up. 
In his "Principles of Psychology" (sects. 208, 
216) he says: "The individual cannot sunder a 
conjunction thus deeply rooted in the organiza- 
tion of the race" ; hence, he is born into the world 
with those psychical connections which form the 
substrata of "necessary truths." In his "First 
Principles" (sect. 53), he says: "Absolute uni- 
formities of experience generate absolute uni- 
formities of thought." Thus it may be seen 



10 AUTHORITY 

that, however much the absolutely personal ele- 
ment is centered in every individual, however en- 
tirely unique and one's own, yet each realizes his 
personality among men as a social being. The 
ethical and religious contents of man's life have 
been developed and have taken form historically 
in social relations. 

The individual finds a standard for compari- 
son, and material to assimilate, in the terms of 
life as expressed in the personal experiences and 
judgments around him. And these principles, 
often authoritative, influence his unconscious ap- 
plication, as he strives consciously to realize his 
ethical ideals and religious life under the stimu- 
lus of personal relations. The importance of 
the individual standpoint is thus brought out, 
and the claims for personality are rendered 
significant, because of the prime factor of indi- 
vidual life in social life. But we must also per- 
ceive that the authority of society is fraught with 
life-experiences akin to those known to the indi- 
vidual, and this renders the social, ethical, and 
religious codes less external as regulative law. 
Professor Giddings made a contribution to the 
study of societary phenomena in his conception 
of "consciousness of kind," but failed to give it 
a proper setting in social life. It is plain that 
the question whether authority should be lodged 
with the individual, or with the legal construe- 



AUTHORITY AND LIBERTY 11 

tions of larger experience, cannot be treated in 
categorical fashion. We must rather inquire 
how the individual is related to the "stored-up, 
codified racial experience." Professor James 
says: "The legal tradition enters the mind of the 
vast majority of citizens in a vague way at best. 
It is clearly conscious in the thought of a special 
class only, which, however, may be regarded as 
the social organ of that particular function of 
the collective mind." That this relation, how- 
ever, is an essential and real one, is assumed in 
all educational efforts, which aim so to adapt the 
individual to his surroundings that he may fit in 
the social setting with the least waste of mental 
energy. Dr. G. E. Vincent says in an essay 
entitled "The Social Mind and Education": 
"Education sets before itself the task of relating 
the individual intrinsically to the social tradition 
so that he may become an organic part of so- 
ciety." This question as to the relation of the 
state to the individual raises the problem of 
reconciling authority and liberty, law and indi- 
vidualism, and as such constitutes the social as- 
pect of our inquiry. 



CHAPTER II 
CHURCH AND STATE 

The need of this ultimate authorization has 
been felt by both church and state alike in the ex- 
ercise of earthly power. The church ruling over 
the corporate body of believers who give assent 
to her order and doctrine does not need to estab- 
lish her claims. But what is her authority over 
those who are outside? Some have answered, It 
is to "go out into the highways and hedges, and 
compel them to come in," forgetting that, in 
view of her mission, the compulsion of the church 
cannot be one of outward restraint. The church 
endeavors to win people: the state controls 
people. There is thus a wide chasm between 
church and state. To the church belongs the 
higher, more definite sanction, but to the state 
the wider range. To the church is given a posi- 
tive commission to fulfill, to the state mainly the 
vindication of its laws. The state therefore re- 
mains always more impersonal in its regulations 
than the church, and, having power of fact, may 
vindicate its authority by a rational rule of its 
subjects. A difficult question is raised as 
whether the state shall rule the church, or the 

12 



CHURCH AND STATE 13 

church the state. May the admittedly more im- 
personal rule of the state be allowed authority 
over the church, which claims a more personal 
relation with the Source of all authority? Or 
may the church, including only the believers, ex- 
tend her rules, naturally more specific, over the 
whole of society. A practical, working solution 
has, of course, been found by allowing state and 
church to some extent their own respective 
spheres, even where either of them sways su- 
perior power. A practical merger of the two 
functions is the true solution, — all the secular, 
governmental functions sanctioned and per- 
meated by Christian belief and principle. 

Phillips Brooks discusses this in gingerly 
fashion in his address on "The Influence of Jesus 
on the Social Life of Man." 

"I know that here is the essence of what most men, 
as they look at history, are apt to dread to-day, of a 
theocracy, of a religious state and of a state religion. 
If this which I have said be true, if the state and its 
machineries be valuable to the Christian patriot, as his 
state was valuable to Jesus, because of the spiritual 
interests which they enshrine, because of the family 
life of man with God which they represent, then why 
should he not ask that the state should manifest its 
spiritual function to the fullest degree by becoming dis- 
tinctively and openly the minister of Christ? Why 
should he not ask that Christianity, as he conceives it, 



14 AUTHORITY 

and as it seems to him to be unspeakably important, 
should be taught in the state schools? Nay, why 
should he not ask that only men distinctively and posi- 
tively Christian in belief and life should be entrusted 
with the conduct of the nation? How can he live, how 
can he be a patriot, in any land which is as purely sec- 
ular in its administration as all our lands are growing 
more and more to be? It is an urgent question. We 
can only find its answer, I think, in two considerations 
which no man can ignore. One is that the ideas and 
methods of spiritual men and even of Christian men, 
are so divergent from one another that it is only on 
the broadest basis of the most general purposes of 
spiritual life that they can meet, not in their special 
methods of their special creeds, but only in the de- 
gree and assertion of righteousness and truth to which 
all their methods and their creeds belong. The other 
consideration is that, even were all spiritual men at 
one, they well might doubt whether it would be well 
to make the government of their land the agent and 
maintainer of their faith. Any machinery of govern- 
ment which men have yet devised is too coarse and 
clumsy for so delicate a task as the inculcation and en- 
couragement of faith. Government works by compul- 
sion ; faith by inspirations. Government lays its 
hands on actions ; faith nestles into unseen affections. 
Government estimates appearances ; faith looks only 
at realities. And so government, though all the land 
were unanimously and harmoniously Christian, would 
still be a poor minister of Christianity. These are the 
considerations which make the Christian man consent 



CHURCH AND STATE 15 

to live in a state whose chosen policy is secular, and 
yet lets him feel that there are unowned spiritual in- 
fluences and powers in her to which he may rejoice to 
lend his aid. Let these considerations pass away, let 
all the spiritual desire and aspiration of the land be 
fused into a perfect unanimity of thought and action, 
and let some new finer machinery of governmental ac- 
tion be devised or developed which shall be capable of 
spiritual uses and then theocracy, a religious state, a 
state religion, a national creed, a Christian public edu- 
cation, a divine responsibility in every officer — all these 
would be not merely conceivable, they would be the only 
methods which the Christianized state could think of 
for a moment. There would be nothing secular in such 
a heavenly community as that. Only it would be al- 
tered utterly from what we see now. It would be the 
New Jerusalem for which we hope, and not the old 
earthly city which we know so well. At present we 
can only keep it constantly before our eyes and always 
proclaim it as the true ideal. We can, and I think we 
ought to, earnestly assert, when men praise it most 
loudly, that secularism, however we may accept it 
cheerfully as the only expedient for the present time, 
is not the highest nor the eternal type of government. 
We may strive, by that devotion to the spiritual ele- 
ment in national life which even pure secularity of 
public methods still leaves possible, to hasten the day, 
which must come if Christ be what we know he is, when 
the idea of Jesus shall be the shaping and moving 
power of the Christian state; and among the happy 
sons of God the son of God shall evidently reign, as 



16 AUTHORITY 

the old phrase describes, 'King of nations as king of 
saints.' " (Bohlen Lectures, 1870.) 

We remind here of the fact, that "Black- 
stone's Commentaries" give explicitly as the au- 
thoritative source of legislation God's will and 
revelation. We quote: Section II of the "Na- 
ture of Laws in General." 

"Law defined: 

"Law, in its most general and comprehensive sense, 
signifies a rule of action; and is applied indiscrimi- 
nately to all kinds of action, whether animate or inani- 
mate, rational or irrational. Thus we say, the laws of 
motion, of gravitation, of optics, or mechanics, as well 
as the laws of nature and of nations. And it is a rule 
of action which is prescribed by some superior, and 
which the inferior is bound to obey. But laws, in their 
more confined sense, denote the rules, not of action in 
general, but of human action or conduct; that is the 
precepts by which man, a creature endowed with both 
reason and free will, is commanded to make use of 
those faculties in the general regulation of his be- 
havior. 

"Here follows a discussion of the law of nature which 
is stated to be the will of God, such as that we should 
live honestly, should hurt nobody, and should render 
to everyone his dues. This law of nature is superior 
in obligation to any other. In consequence of the de- 
fects of human reason by which we endeavor to know 
the will of God, there is made necessary the revealed 



CHURCH AND STATE 17 

or divine law found only in the holy scriptures. Upon 
the law of nature and the law of revelation depend all 
human laws." (Spr ague's Abridgment.) 

Charles Zueblin gives in "The Religion of a 
Democrat" his opinion not only in favor of the 
separation of Church and State, but of the sub- 
ordination of church to the state, the church be- 
ing really one of the state functions to provide 
for the religious needs of society. 

"The state must be supreme; the church must be 
subordinate ; and religion can only be free in the state. 
Our minds have been so befogged by the conflict be- 
tween church and state that we have grown unable to 
see the harmony of religion and society. When it is 
recognized that every individual must have his own re- 
ligion, regardless of the ecclesiastical authority to 
which he may hold allegiance, then it will be seen that 
only the state can facilitate this. The conflict between 
state and church in France seems to throw light upon 
our problem. The state is trying to assert its su- 
premacy over the church; the church, so far as it is 
conscientious in its activities, argues that it is univer- 
sal and therefore superior to the state. If it were, if 
they had such a national church, if it could make its 
claims to universalism good, would it not be loyal to 
the interests of society as a whole, and how can so- 
ciety as a whole be served except through the state? 
The present organization of the state may be as im- 
perfect as the present organization of the church, but 



18 AUTHORITY 

the state is the only organization which represents so- 
ciety. The church is the very imperfect, highly spe- 
cialized organization of one of society's functions, and 
if it actually moralized all human wants, it could still 
serve society fully only as an instrumentality of the 
state. That the church has sometimes seemed superior 
to the state only means that churchmen have sometimes 
been superior to statesmen in their capacity for under- 
standing the interests of society as a whole." (pp. 
118ff.) 

It is interesting to note, however, that the re- 
ligious democracy or democratic religion of Pro- 
fessor Zueblin runs into individualism. He de- 
clares : 

"Whatever the imperfections of contemporary life, 
it must not be forgotten that the state is organized 
society, and that its weaknesses are due to the delega- 
tion of some of its functions to un-co-ordinated insti- 
tutions. There can be no moral stability until it is 
recognized that the individual is sovereign, not subject. 
Industry lacks efficiency, the church lacks spirituality, 
and the state lacks solidarity, when the individual is not 
sovereign. He must be master of his occupation, of his 
faith and of his citizenship, or these are empty names. 
In a deep and real sense, democracy is the only moral- 
ity, but democracy must mean the sovereignty of the 
people in all human relationships." 

If Professor Zueblin goes deep enough, he 



CHURCH AND STATE 19 

will need Christianity to guarantee this concep- 
tion of democracy! All things are ours when 
we are Christ's! 

Dr. David Jayne Hill, late United States am- 
bassador to Germany, expressed in a course of 
lectures before Columbia University a truly 
popular conception of government as a kind of 
public business-management of the different de- 
partments that society wants discharged. Thus 
he may well put aside any higher authority, and 
on such a basis scoff at the affirmation by Em- 
peror William of a belief in the divine right to 
govern. 

"The state can no longer speak or act irre- 
sponsibly in the name of Deity or clothe itself 
in the garb of super-human attributes or divine 
supremacy," says Dr. Hill, evidently overlook- 
ing the fact that a state thus speaking or acting 
is bound by the highest responsibility, and an 
admittedly stronger obligation than where "vox 
populi is vox Dei." The abuses of popular au- 
thority have demonstrated sufficiently that brute 
force comes to displace right under whatever 
great phrases the politicians may work their 
schemes with the authorizing populus. And it 
is undeniable that force comes to be looked upon 
as a controlling and authorizing power under 
such a regime. "In order to fulfill its mission as 
the guardian of human rights and the protago- 



20 AUTHORITY 

nist of law," — Dr. Hill asserts — "the state must 
be entrusted with sufficient organized force to 
repress wrong-doing and maintain in all emer- 
gencies public order, but we must not overlook 
the fact that we have invested it with powers 
vastly more enormous than it has ever before 
possessed. There is, without doubt, a great 
danger in the omnipotence of the state. Dur- 
ing the greater part of human history govern- 
ment has been arbitrary, and it has enshrouded 
its right to be so in some halo of sanctity. The 
helplessness, dependence, and ignorance of men 
have rendered them powerless to resist its as- 
sumptions. Looking up to it as the highest 
earthly authority they have been taught to re- 
gard it as possessing a divine prerogative. It 
has usually, and not unnaturally, intrenched its 
pretensions in what was most sacred in their sen- 
timents and consciences, and when it could not 
dominate them by superior force it has rendered 
them passive through an appeal to their religious 
obligations." Has, indeed, government been 
arbitrary during the greater part of human his- 
tory, and is the statement impartial, that it has 
enshrouded its right to be so in some halo of 
sanctity? Have people been specially "taught" 
to regard it as possessing a divine prerogative, 
without regarding it so themselves? We take 
occasion to remind Dr. Hill that a great number 



CHURCH AND STATE 21 

of people — not the helpless, dependent and 
ignorant — would maintain with the German Em- 
peror that nothing less than a divine right to 
govern constitutes in the end a rightful claim to 
authority over the people. 

It is on account of this business point of view 
that reverence for the law is a desideratum in the 
United States. 

The Duke of Harcourt in an able work, 
"Quelques reflexions sur les lois sociales," might 
bring to Dr. Hill's notice the pervasive influence 
and power of religion in society, and incidentally 
claim its consequent rights. He observes 
(Chapitre II Le Sentiment religieux) : 

"Les lois humaines se proposent le bonheur 
d'une societe, la religion se propose le bonheur 
de Tindividu; par la elle ne s'accorde pas avec 
les conceptions de rhomme d'etat. Les lois 
humaines ont tou jours sacrifie certains individus 
aux necessites sociales. La religion, faite pour 
l'individu, ne sacrifie personne." In opening 
this part of his work he says: "II est de mode 
aujourd'hui parmi certains hommes, surtout 
parmi ceux que le courant de notre temps a 
portes dans les fonctions publiques, de con- 
siderer la religion, quelle qu' elle soit, comme un 
accessoire dans la vie d'une societe. lis la re- 
gardent comme un vieux debris fait pour plaire 
aux esprits f aibles, et pour lequel, en leur f aveur, 



22 AUTHORITY 

on peut consentir peut-etre a quelques sacrifices, 
mais a la condition que ce ne soit pour l'etat ni 
une depense ni un embarras." The learned duke 
concludes his work: "les sentiments religieuxj, 
mis systematiquement par nos hommes politiques 
en dehors de leurs etudes, restent tou jours la 
veritable sauvegarde de la societe; les assemblies 
politiques, quels que soient les merites de leurs 
membres, sont des etres de creations humaines, 
des mecanismes, tres utilles sans doute, mais irre- 
sponsables par leur essence meme, et incapables 
des qualites pu'on s'obstine a leur demander 
. . . de ces diverses propositions, les hommes 
d'etat ne tireront-ils aucune consequence? Je le 
laisse a leur sagacite." (p. 275) . 

Anatole Leroy — Beaulieu makes an emphatic 
protest against this disregard for religion 
in governmental functions. 

"L'Etat moderne, l'etat, athee, l'etat franc-macon, 
l'etat nouveau, issu de la democratie, nous l'avons vu plus 
d'une fois ne laissant de liberte qu a ce que le Saint- 
Siege appelle le mal et ne reconnaitre de droits qu a 
ce que l'eglise nomme l'erreur . . . Meconnais- 
sant son incompetence doctrinale, l'etat democratique 
(dans l'espece, la republique de 1892) se laisse volon- 
tiers aller a dogmatiser . . . II se fait a l'occasion 
son Credo et son Catechisme qu'il enseigne au peuple par 
des catechistes a lui; il tend a s'arroger le droit qu'il 
denie a Veglise le droit de fondre les esprits dans un 



CHURCH AND STATE 23 

moule et de faconner les generations a sa guise." (La 
papaute it la democratic, p. 369 Revue des deux 
Mondes, Jan., 1892.) 

"The modern state, the atheistic state, the state of 
free-masons, the new state as issued forth from 
the democracy, we have seen it more than once, leaves 
only liberty for what the Holy See calls evil and recog- 
nizes only as rights what the church considers error. 
. . . Failing to recognize its incompetence in re- 
gard to doctrines, the democratic state (specially the 
republic of 1892) starts readily to dogmatise. 
It provides occasionally Creed and catechism which it 
teaches to the people by its own catechisers. It is in- 
clined to arrogate to itself the right which it denies the 
church, the right to mould and fashion the mind of the 
people." (The Papacy and Democracy.) 

The Catholic standpoint in regard to this mat- 
ter is presented eloquently and in forceful po- 
lemic strain by Monseigneur J. Fevre, vicar 
general of Gap and Amiens whose able pen pro- 
duced a great number of apologetic and polemic 
works in defense of the Roman Catholic Church. 
In "La separation de l'eglise et de l'etat," he con- 
cludes that of right the sovereign church inde- 
pendent in her sphere, in union with the state ( as 
before the Concordat) ought to stand over the 
secular power of state, but as of fact he accepts 
the "regime concordataire" as ratified by the 
church. Special notice deserves in this connec- 



24 AUTHORITY 

tion the emphasis laid upon the distinct and 
separate spheres of the activity of church and 
state, whilst it is nevertheless argued with fervor 
that a separation of church and society would be 
fatal. 

"La confusion et l'erreur proviennent ici de l'idee 
etrange qu'on se fait de l'eglise et de sa constitution. 
L'eglise, pense-t-on, n'est qu' une societe ordinaire, une 
classe d'hommes soumis comme les autres, au controle 
de l'etat. La societe civile entraine cette classe dans 
le cercle de ses attributions comme le soleil entraine, dans 
son orbite, une planete de second ordre. L'etat ab- 
sorbe tous les services ; de lui decoulent toutes les fonc- 
tions, toutes les lois, toutes les grandeurs. Cette cen- 
tralization est le fruit du progres moderne. . . 
N'est ce pas plutot la glorification de la matiere? une 
monstrueuse apotheose de la force? la resurrection du 
cesarisme paien? Dans tous les cas, c'est une concep- 
tion fausse, absurde, de la nature de l'eglise et de son 
role surnaturel dans le monde ; c'est un melange batard 
des traditions paiennes et des conceptions heretiques 
qui consacrent, meme dans l'ordre religieux, la supre- 
matie de l'etat. 

"Non, l'eglise dans sa sphere propre, ne depend pas 
de vous ; non l'eglise n'est pas une subalterne ou une 
infirme qui a besoin de votre pouvoir pour s'ouvrir la 
scene du monde. Le monde entier lui appartient. 
Dieu l'a chargee de le diriger, de le redresser et de le 
maintenir sous sa loi. Quand l'eglise remplit ce de- 
voir, elle n'usurpe personne; elle ne fait qu' user du 



CHURCH AND STATE 25 

pouvoir qu'elle a recu de Dieu. Euntes, docete, raan- 
dantes servare omnia. A l'eglise soit tout ce qui est 
de l'eglise." (p. 174 ff.) 

James Bryce, British ambassador to the 
United States, gives us in his famous discussion, 
"The American Commonwealth," such a saga- 
cious and careful description of the Church and 
State in America, that it seems well to conclude 
with his impartial observations. 

" 'The abstention of the state from interference in 
matters of faith and worship may be advocated on two 
principles, which may be called the political and the 
religious. The former sets out from the principles 
of liberty and equality. It holds any attempt at com- 
pulsion by the civil power to be an infringement on 
liberty and thought, as well as on liberty of action, 
which could be justified only when a practice claiming 
to be religious is so obviously anti-social or immoral as 
to threaten the well-being of the community. Re- 
ligious persecution, even in its milder forms, such as 
disqualifying the members of a particular sect for 
public office, is, it conceives, inconsistent with the con- 
ception of individual freedom and the respect due to 
the primordial rights of the citizen which modern 
thought has embraced. Even if state action stops 
short of the imposition of disabilities, and confines itself 
to favoring a particular church, whether by grants of 
money or by giving special immunities to its clergy, 
this is an infringement on equality,' putting one man 



26 AUTHORITY 

at a disadvantage compared with others in respect of 
matters which are not fit subjects for state cognizance. 
(The question of course follows, what are the matters 
fit for state cognizance? but into this I do not enter, 
as I am not attempting to argue these intricate ques- 
tions, but merely to indicate the general aspect they 
take in current discussion.) 

"The second principle, embodying the more purely 
religious view of the question, starts from the conception 
of the church as a spiritual body existing for spiritual 
purposes, and moving along spiritual paths. It is an 
assemblage of men who are united by their devotion to 
an unseen Being, their memory of a past divine life, 
their belief in the possibility of imitating that life, so 
far as human frailty allows, their hopes for an illimita- 
ble future. Compulsion of any kind is contrary to the 
nature of such a body, which lives by love and rever- 
ence, not by law. It desires no state help, feeling that 
its strength comes from above, and that its kingdom 
it not of this world. It does not seek for exclusive 
privileges, conceiving that these would not only create 
bitterness between itself and other religious bodies, but 
might attract persons who did not really share its 
sentiments, while corrupting the simplicity of those who 
are already its members. Least of all can it submit 
to be controlled by the state, for the state, in such a 
world as the present, means persons many or most of 
whom are alien to its beliefs and cold to its emotions. 
The conclusion follows that the church as a spiritual 
entity will be happiest and strongest when it is left 
absolutely to itself, not patronized by the civil power, 



CHURCH AND STATE 27 

not restrained by law except when and in so far as it 
may attempt to quit its proper sphere and intermeddle 
in secular affairs. 

"Of these two views it is the former much more than 
the latter that has moved the American mind. The 
latter would doubtless be more generally accepted by 
religious people. But when the question arose in a 
practical shape in the earlier days of the Republic, 
arguments of the former or political order were found 
amply sufficient to settle it, and no practical purpose 
has since then compelled men either to examine the 
spiritual basis of the church, or to inspire by the light 
of history how far state action has during fifteen cen- 
turies helped or marred her usefulness. There has, 
however, been another cause at work, I mean the com- 
paratively limited conception of the state itself which 
Americans have formed. The state is not to them, as 
to Germans or Frenchmen, and even to some English 
thinkers, an ideal moral power, charged with the duty 
of forming the characters and guiding the lives of its 
subjects. It is more like a commercial company, or 
perhaps a huge municipality created for the manage- 
ment of certain business in which all who reside within 
its bounds are interested, levying contributions and ex- 
pending them on this business of common interest, but 
for the most part leaving the shareholders or burgesses 
to themselves. That an organization of this kind 
should trouble itself, otherwise than as matters of po- 
lice, with the opinions or conduct of its members would 
be as unnatural as for a railway company to inquire 
how many of the shareholders were total abstainers. 



28 AUTHORITY 

Accordingly it never occurs to the average American 
that there is any reason why state churches should ex- 
ist, and he stands amazed at the warmth of European 
feeling on the matter. Just because these questions 
have been long since disposed of, and excite no present 
passion, and perhaps also because the Americans are 
more practically easy-going than pedantically exact, 
the National government and the State governments 
do give to Christianity a species of recognition incon- 
sistent with the view that civil government should be 
absolutely neutral in religious matters. Each House 
of Congress has a chaplain, and opens its proceedings 
each day with prayers. The President annually after 
the end of harvest issues a proclamation ordering a 
general thanksgiving, and occasionally appoints a day 
of fasting and humiliation. So prayers are offered in 
the State legislatures (though Michigan and Oregon 
forbid any appropriation of State funds for days of 
religious observance). Congress in the crisis of the 
Civil War (July, 1863) requested the President to ap- 
point a day for humiliation and prayer. In the army 
and navy provision is made for religious services, con- 
ducted by chaplains of various denominations, and no 
difficulty seems to have been found in reconciling their 
claims. In most States there exist laws punishing 
blasphemy or profane swearing by the name of God 
(laws which, however, are in some places openly trans- 
gressed and in few or none enforced, laws restricting 
or forbidding trade or labor on the Sabbath, as well 
as laws protecting assemblages for religious purposes, 
such as camp-meetings or religious processions, from 



CHURCH AND STATE 29 

being disturbed. The Bible is read in the public State- 
supported schools, and though controversies have arisen 
on this head, the practice is evidently in accord with 
the general sentiment of the people. The whole mat- 
ter may, I think, be summed up by saying that Chris- 
tianity is in fact understood to be, though not the 
legally established religion, yet the national religion. 
(It has often been said that Christianity is a part of 
the common law of the States, as it has been said to 
be of the common law of England, but on this point 
there have been discrepant judicial opinions, nor can it 
be said to find any specific practical application. A 
discussion of it may be found in Justice Story's opinion 
in the famous Girard will case.) So far from think- 
ing their commonwealth godless, the Americans con- 
ceive that the religious character of a government con- 
sists in nothing but the religious belief of the indi- 
vidual citizens, and the conformity of their conduct 
to that belief. They deem the general acceptance of 
Christianity to be one of the main sources of their nat- 
ural prosperity, and their nation a special object of 
the Divine favor. 

"The legal position of a Christian church is in the 
United States simply that of a voluntary association, 
or group of associations, corporate or unincorporate, 
under the ordinary law. There is no such thing as a 
special ecclesiastical law; all questions, not only of 
property but of church discipline and jurisdiction, are, 
if brought before the courts of the land, dealt with as 
questions of contract (or otherwise as questions of pri- 
vate civil law. Actions for damages are sometimes 



30 AUTHORITY 

brought against ecclesiastical authorities by persons 
deeming themselves to have been improperly accused or 
disciplined or deprived of the enjoyment of property). 
And the court, where it is obliged to examine a ques- 
tion of theology, as for instance, whether a clergyman 
had advanced opinions inconsistent with any creed or 
formula to which he has bound himself — for it will pre- 
fer, if possible, to leave such matters to the proper ec- 
clesiastical authority — will treat the point as one of 
pure legal interpretation, neither assuming to itself 
theological knowledge, nor suffering considerations of 
policy to intervene. (The Emperor Aurelian decided 
in a like neutral spirit a question that had arisen be- 
tween two Christian churches.) 

"As a rule, every religious body can organize itself 
in any way it pleases. The State does not require its 
leave to be asked, but permits any form of church gov- 
ernment, any ecclesiastical order, to be created and en- 
dowed, any method to be adopted of vesting church 
property, either simply in trustees or in corporate 
bodies formed either under the general law of the State 
or under some special statute. Sometimes a limit is 
imposed on the amount of property, or of real estate, 
which an ecclesiastical corporation can hold; but, on 
the whole, it may be said that the civil power manifests 
no jealousy of the spiritual, but allows the latter a 
perfectly free field for expansion. Of course if any 
ecclesiastical authority were to become formidable 
either by its wealth or by its control over the members 
of its body, this easy tolerance would disappear; all I 
observe is that the difficulties often experienced, and 



CHURCH AND STATE 31 

still more often feared, in Europe, from the growth of 
organizations exercising tremendous spiritual powers, 
have in America never proved serious. Religious 
bodies are in so far the objects of special favor that 
their property is in most States exempt from taxation. 
(In his message of 1881 the Governor of Washington 
Territory recommends the legislature to exempt church 
property from taxation, not only on the ground that 
'churches and schoolhouses are the temples of educa- 
tion, and alike conduce to the cultivation of peace, hap- 
piness and prosperity,' but also because 'churches 
enhance the value of contiguous property, which, were 
they abolished, would be of less value and return less 
revenue.' And this is reconciled to theory by argu- 
ment that they are serviceable as moral agencies, and 
diminish the expenses incurred in respect of police 
administration. Two or three States impose restric- 
tions on the creation of religious corporations, and one, 
Maryland, requires the sanction of the legislature to 
dispositions of property to religious uses. But speak- 
ing generally, religious bodies are the objects of legis- 
lative favor. (New Hampshire has lately taxed 
churches on the value of their real estate exceeding ten 
thousand dollars.)" (Second Volume, pp. 647-652.) 

The struggle for authority between secular 
and ecclesiastical power has found its classic ex- 
pression in the rivalry of Emperor Henry IV 
and Pope Gregory VII for supremacy in earthly 
matters. The great success of von Wilden- 
bruch's work, "Heinrich und Heinrich's Gesch- 



32 AUTHORITY 

lecht," may be accounted for largely, apart from 
its merits, by the interest felt in the theme. The 
Germans of our day went through a renewal of 
the same struggle in the Kulturkampf with Bis- 
marck and Windhorst as respective champions. 
Bismarck's words in the Reichstag, "Nach Ca- 
nossa gehn wir nicht," are characteristic. 

The present illustrious ruler has reconciled 
considerably this conflict, recognizing that Ro- 
man Catholicism should be judged more desir- 
able than the secularizing tendencies which (as 
illustrated most plainly in France, though other 
nations show the same trend) exemplify an 
atheistic and revolutionary spirit under the dis- 
guise of culture and progress. That with the 
Emperor this does not mean a special indulgence 
towards papal policy, however, is shown by a 
very recent warning to the Vatican by Chancel- 
lor von Bethmann-Hollweg, admonishing the 
Curia of issuing various decrees without that con- 
sideration for German conditions which was in- 
dispensable in maintaining a friendly status. 
The Kaiser said on the occasion of the inspection 
of a crucifix which he had presented to the Bene- 
dictine monastery at Beuron: 

"I offer you my heartfelt thanks for the kind words 
with which you have received me, and am glad to have 
the opportunity of paying you a visit and expressing 



CHURCH AND STATE 33 

to you my sincere good-will. From the beginning of 
my reign it was a particular pleasure to me to support 
the Benedictines in their efforts, since I had noticed 
that wherever they had worked they had not only en- 
deavored to maintain and strengthen religion, but had 
also distinguished themselves as promoters of culture 
in the field of church-music, in art, in science and in 
other ways, thus rendering services which should not 
be under-estimated. What I expect from you is that 
you will continue working in the paths of your fore- 
fathers and support me in my efforts to maintain the 
people's religion. This is all the more important be- 
cause the twentieth century has liberated ideas which 
can only be successfully combated with the aid of re- 
ligion and the support of Heaven. This is my firm 
conviction. The crown which I wear can only guaran- 
tee success here if it is based on the word and person- 
ality of our Lord. As a symbol of this I have pre- 
sented the crucifix to this church in order, as I said in 
my letter, to prove that the governments of the Chris- 
tian princes can only be carried on in the spirit of our 
Lord, and that they shall help to strengthen the reli- 
gious feeling which is innate in the Germanic races, and 
increase respect for altar and throne. Both these go 
together, and must not be separated. Therefore I pro- 
mote with my whole heart the aims which you are pur- 
suing, and in the future as in the past, will grant you 
my favor and my protection." 

It might be observed in this connection that by 
an alliance with the Catholics the gifted Dutch 



34 AUTHORITY 

Premier, Abraham Kuyper, combated success- 
fully and finally overthrew the liberal regime, 
which for over half a century exercised its 
baneful influence in the Netherlands. 

Gregory's letter, sent in 1075, upbraiding 
Henry for neglect of papal decrees, was headed : 
"Bishop Gregory, servant of the servants of 
God, to King Henry, greeting and apostolic ben- 
ediction: — that is, if he be obedient to the apos- 
tolic chair as beseems a Christian king. "To this, 
Henry replied the next year by a letter, begin- 
ning, "Henry, King not by usurpation but by 
holy ordination of God, to Hildebrand, now no 
pope, but false monk," and ending: "I, Henry, 
King by the grace of God, together with all our 
bishops, say unto thee, 'Come down to be 
damned throughout all eternity. ' " Later, 
when in 1107 at Chalons the questions of investi- 
ture were discussed, the Pope declared by the 
Bishop of Piacenza: "To invest with the ring 
and the staff, since these belong to the altar, is 
to usurp the powers of God Himself. For a 
priest to place his hands, sanctified by the body 
and blood of the Lord, in the blood-stained 
hands of a layman, as a pledge, is to dishonor his 
order and holy consecration." It has often been 
observed that this quarrel occasioned the phrase 
"by the grace of God" to be attached to the proc- 
lamation of rulers. So it did, but it is a super- 



CHURCH AND STATE 85 

jficial inference to argue that with the phrase was 
originated the belief or meaning which it ex- 
presses. The struggle was too keen, too passion- 
ate, to have sprung out of a newly invented be- 
lief, to which the phrase might have given rise. 
When Germany's gifted monarch, William 
the Great, voiced this deep religious conviction 
in his Konigsberg speech, liberalism and radical 
elements misconstrued and misrepresented his 
words in a wholly unwarranted agitation. The 
Emperor said: "My grandfather by his own 
right placed the Prussian crown upon his head 
and again proclaimed it to be bestowed upon 
him by God's grace alone and not by Parlia- 
ments, assemblages of the people, or revolutions 
of the people, and he saw himself the chosen in- 
strument of heaven, and as such regarded his duty 
as regent and ruler. Considering myself as the 
instrument of the Master, regardless of passing 
views and opinions, I go my way, which is solely 
devoted to the prosperity and peaceful develop- 
ment of our Fatherland." In the same hall the 
Kaiser said in May, 1890: "We Hohenzollerns 
take our crown from heaven alone; and in 1894 
William II, quoting the words of his grand- 
father William I, about ruling by divine right, 
added: "So, too, do I take my kingdom by God's 
grace." To construe this utterance of "divine 
right" as a declaration of absolutism and under- 



36 AUTHORITY 

estimation of the people and the people's repre- 
sentatives is a flimsy and paltry pretext indeed! 
for those sowing the discontent on which social- 
ism feeds. 

What His Majesty proclaimed and has made 
actual in his conduct as ruler is simply, that his 
sense of duty rests on religious grounds. As 
Hegel dignified the laws of the land by conceiv- 
ing the sovereignty of the state as vested with 
the authority of the Absolute Idea, so Emperor 
William feels in it the sanction and expression of 
God. The German agitators should remember 
that in spite of this alleged "divine right" by 
which the Kaiser claims to rule, the Emperor in- 
deed adheres to the same attitude which Prince 
von Buelow expressed in the Reichstag July 20, 
1908: "Not a single case can be adduced where 
the Kaiser has placed himself in opposition to 
the constitution." In many a republic without 
attempt at, or sentiment of justification in Divine 
authority, constitutional or popular rights have 
often been disregarded. In fact, only a firm re- 
liance on supreme authority and right guaran- 
tees the right of the nation, and is capable 
of vindicating it. Consider for a moment 
the superficial, harmful and impious no- 
tions of a journalist-preacher on "The Spirit of 
Democracy" and you will doubtlessly recognize 
the superiority of the man — be he ruler or offi- 



CHURCH AND STATE 37 

cial — who feels himself responsible in his con- 
science to God over him whose horizon limits it- 
self to an outlook upon the crowd of voters. 
Such a viewpoint, however, is maintained by 
Lyman Abbot in the "Outlook" : 

"The state of nature is the ideal state; let us go 
back to it. In a state of nature every man is free to 
live his own life, direct his own energies, carve out his 
own destiny. Every impediment upon this freedom is 
an injury to humanity. All government is such an 
impediment. A little government is absolutely neces- 
sary to protect the weak from the strong, but govern- 
ment is a necessary evil, and the less we have of it the 
better. Humanity has simply consented to it in order 
to protect itself. It should constrain only to free from 
constraint. On this consent of the governed govern- 
ment is founded. This is the basis of all authority. 
The ultimate appeal is to the people; for the voice of 
the people is the voice of God — that is, if there is a God. 
Whether there be one or not it is not material to in- 
quire; for the voice of the people is final. A just gov- 
ernment is a government carried on in accordance with 
the will of the majority; an unjust government is one 
carried on not in accordance with that will." 



CHAPTER III 

MORAL AUTHORITY 

When the objective norm, the legal code, con- 
ventional morality and new religious formulas 
are framed in keeping with the changes of con- 
temporary opinion, they become liable to error, 
and must be subject to subsequent correction. 
Thus they cannot well claim the confident sub- 
mission of the individual as possessing rightful 
or reasonable authority. Yet the tendency to- 
day is to regard the sanction of society as final, 
both in ethics and in religion. Both morality 
and religion are becoming more and more con- 
ventional. In this the extreme conclusions of 
sociological theories run into a pantheistic phi- 
losophy that does not allow of an "otherness" in 
the verdict, to which, however, consciousness un- 
mistakably testifies, and which thus destroys an 
objective sanction. Martineau describes in his 
"Types of Ethical Theory" eloquently this au- 
thority and sanction of conscience : 

"Conscience speaks with authority. The authority 
is a simple feeling, admitting of little analysis or ex- 
planation. But it is not simply subjective, not of my 

38 



MORAL AUTHORITY 39 

own making, not a mere self-assertion of my own will 
to which my own will is the first to bend in homage. 
The authority which reveals itself within us reports 
itself, not only as underived from our will, but as in- 
dependent of our idiosyncrasies altogether. If the 
sense of authority means anything, it means the dis- 
cernment of something higher than we, no mere part 
of ourself, but transcending our personality. It is 
more than part and parcel of myself, it is communion 
of God's life and guiding love entering and abiding 
with an apprehensive capacity in myself. Here we 
encounter an objective authority without quitting our 
own center of consciousness. A man is a law unto 
himself, not by autonomy of the individual, but by self- 
communication of the Infinite Spirit to the soul and the 
law itself, the idea of an absolute 'should be' is au- 
thoritative with conscience, because it is the deliver- 
ance of the eternal perfection to a mind that has to 
grow and is imposed, therefore, by the Infinite upon 
the finite." 

Professor Ladd truly remarks, in his "Theory 
of Reality": "Man's conception of Reality must 
be derived from his cognitive experience with 
concrete realities — subjected to reflection." 
And again: "Cognitive experience with concrete 
things contains at its roots, if anywhere it is to 
be found, the beginnings to a true answer of the 
metaphysical problem." In the face of the 
"personal equation," the saying that there is no 
greater tyranny than an equality forced upon 



40 AUTHORITY 

those who are not equal, is perfectly true. Mon- 
taigne in the time of the "discovery of man" 
spoke the pregnant words: "Everyone must have 
'an inner touchstone' (un patron au dedans) by 
which to judge his actions." Fouillee rightly 
remarks in his "Psychologie des peuples euro- 
peens" : "M. Guyau and M. Tarde have strongly 
insisted that we are under the dominion of con- 
tinual suggestion, coming from the environment 
in which we live. . . . We disagree with 
those who reduce the whole of sociology to a 
study of these forms, and we believe that the 
study of its psychological foundation is essential 
to sociology." Dr. Philip Fogel brought out in 
an able essay in the American Journal of Soci- 
ology the metaphysical element involved in soci- 
ology, which is ignored by Professor Giddings. 
Durkheim makes of man driftwood on the 
eddying tides of the social currents. He says in 
"Les regies de la methode sociologique" : 

"Not only are these types of conduct or of thought 
external to the individual, but they are endowed with 
commanding and compelling force in virtue of which 
they lay hold of him whether he wishes it or not." 
("Non seulement ces types de conduite ou de pensee 
sont exterieurs a l'individu, mais ils sont doues d'une 
puissance imperative et coercive en vertu de laquelle ils 
s'imposent a lui, qu'il le veuille on non.") 



MORAL AUTHORITY 41 

This view results from the advocacy of social 
forms as the prime influence in life, thus laying 
the basis of moral life with its norms and sanc- 
tions outside of itself, although logically even 
these sanctions are rendered superfluous with 
Durkheim. It is natural that in France this 
school counts many followers, especially since 
France is in some sense "la nation la plus so- 
cialisee, ou les elements sociaux ont flni par 
dominer le plus les elements ethniques et meme 
psychiques" (the most socialized nation where the 
social elements dominate in the highest degree 
the ethnic and even the psychic factors). The 
German conception remains less bare, even when 
irreligious, as Sudermann expresses this view in 
Der Katzensteg: 

"Es ist gut, dass in diesem Chaos, wo Gut und Bbse, 
Recht and Unrecht, Ehre und Schmach wirr durchei- 
mander taumeln, und wo selbst der alte Gott im Himmel 
dahinschwindet, ein fester Pol uns ubrig bleibt, um den 
sich alles aufs neue ordnen musz, ein Eels, an den wir 
Ertrinkenden uns klammern konnen, und an dem es zu 
scheitern selbst noch Wollust ist — das Vaterland !" 

After the materialistic movement in the 
"Naturforschersammlung" of 1854 had excluded 
spiritual factors from its interpretations, the 
need of subjective reference announced itself 
again in the cry: "Back to Kant." After the 



42 



AUTHORITY 



excesses of the left-wing Hegelians, carrying the 
master's panlogism into materialistic channels, 
the individual soul claimed attention once more. 
The views in literature corresponding to those of 
the naturalistic school, broke down, because, as 
the literary critic Rene Doumic expresses it: 
"People have come to recognize that man has a 
soul" (On s'est avise qu' on a une ame). Au- 
gustine's strong affirmation that the home of 
truth is in man, thus finds its recognition. 

We shall now consider the "subjective refer- 
ence" or "personal element" in the ethical and re- 
ligious formulations, not as opposing them to 
these formulations, but with a view to ascertain- 
ing the better their individual bearings on legal- 
ism in ethics and religion, remembering Goethe's 
words : 



"Gern war' ich Ueberliefrung los 
Und ganz original; 
Doch ist das Unternehmen gross 
Und fuhrt in manche Qual. 
Als Autochthone rechnet' ich 
Es mir zur hochsten Ehre 
Wenn ich nicht gar zu wunderlich 
Selbst Ueberliefrung ware." 

and those other, not less important, 

"Was du ererbt von deinen Vatern hast 
Erwirb es, urn es zu besitzen I" 



MORAL AUTHORITY 43 

In spite of the common elements in environ- 
ment and the kinship of human personality, no 
two human lives could ever express each other's 
individual experiences and views. Even if the 
surroundings were entirely the same, the reacting 
individuals would be different. Pantheistic sys- 
tems make a fundamentally false step in slight- 
ing this fact of the uniqueness of each human 
personality. This results from the assumption 
that personality is in itself what it is for others. 
This approach from without, however, will never 
yield the essential meaning of personality. The 
own knowledge of each self is never quite the 
same as the most exhaustive knowledge about 
oneself. Pantheism proceeds on the assumption 
that feeling and will can be left out of account. 
But even on the basis of thought alone, two in- 
dividual consciousnesses could never overlap 
completely. Mr. Hastings Rashdall makes a 
pointed criticism of Professor Royce's "The 
World and the Individual," in an article entitled, 
"Personality: Human and Divine." He says: 
— (Personal Idealism, p. 382 footnote) : 

"It is admitted that two such spirits might have 
like but not identical experiences (i.e., experience in 
which there was some identity but some difference) with- 
out ceasing to be two. Let us suppose the content of 
the consciousness of each to become gradually more 



44 AUTHORITY 

and more like that of the other, including all the time 
the knowledge of the other's existence. Can it be seri- 
ously contended that as the last remaining difference 
disappeared, that consciousness in A of not being B 
would suddenly disappear too? Of course it may be 
said that the consciousness of not being B is part of 
the content of A's consciousness. If so, of course, 
the case supposed could not possibly arise, and the 
difficulty disappears. But still the difference between 
A and B would be absolutely unrecognizable and in- 
describable for any other consciousness, although such 
a consciousness might know there were two beings with 
such contents of consciousness identical but for the 
knowledge by each that he was not the other." 

Alice in Wonderland may instruct us with her 
questioning : 

"If I'm not the same, the next question is, who in the 
world am I? Ah, that's the great puzzle! I'm sure 
I'm not Ada, for her hair goes in such long ringlets, 
and mine doesn't go in ringlets at all; and I am sure 
I can't be Mable, for I know all sorts of things, and 
she, oh! she knows such a very little! Besides, she's 
she, and I'm I, and — oh dear, how puzzling it all is !" 

James describes this as follows: "That un- 
sharable feeling which one has of the pinch of his 
individual destiny as he privately feels it rolling 
out on fortune's wheel may be disparaged for its 
egotism, may be sneered at as unscientific, but it 



MORAL AUTHORITY 45 

is the one thing that fills up the measure of our 
concrete actuality. The axis of reality runs 
solely through the egotistic places — they are 
strung upon it as so many beads." He declares 
that "the altogether unique kind of interest which 
each human mind feels in those parts of crea- 
tion which it can call me or mine may be a moral 
riddle, but it is a psychological fact." It is ex- 
actly this individual factor all its own, which 
cannot be wholly described because of its unique- 
ness, but leaves a residuum that constitutes the 
disturbing element which battles with the regu- 
larity of law. All the more is this true since 
with this factor lies the issue of obedience to, and 
maintenance of, the law in society. Each per- 
son's gaze is fixed upon a particular bit of 
reality, directly observed in his own way. There 
is not merely a barrier around the individual 
soul-life preventing his fellow-creatures from 
observing this inner life; but intrinsically, from 
the nature of the case, no outsider can enter into 
the business transactions of the individual self. 
There is something of awfulness about the 
thought of the lonely pursuit of each individu- 
ality, facing the issue of life singly, seeing 
through one's own eyes, and accepting the re- 
sponsibility for its own life. Indeed if life is 
our own in the last instance, we cannot live it by 
proxy, cannot resolve it into a mere component 



46 AUTHORITY 

part of social life. The pinch of individuality is 
with us, and with the "I" goes a conscience which 
is more than a social verdict. It is something 
which concerns me directly, to which I must 
make a personal response and thus incur re- 
sponsibility. Guy de Maupassant felt this fact 
in a morbid and painful exaggeration, and 
Mathew Arnold utters this weird lament in 
"Poems to Marguerite": 

"In the sea of life enisled, 
With echoing straits between us thrown, 
Dotting the shoreless watery wild, 
We mortal millions live alone." 

How finely is this sentiment portrayed by 
Dickens in "A Tale of Two Cities" at the open- 
ing of the chapter "The Night Shadows": 

"A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human 
creature is constituted to be that profound secret and 
mystery to every other. A solemn consideration, when 
I enter a great city by night, that every one of those 
darkly clustered houses encloses its own secret; that 
every xoom in every one of them encloses its own secret ; 
that every beating heart in the hundreds of thousands 
of breasts there, is, in some of its imaginings, a secret 
to the heart nearest it! Something of the awfulness, 
even of Death itself, is referable to this. No more can 
I turn the leaves of this dear book that I loved, and 






MORAL AUTHORITY 47 

vainly hope in time to read it all. No more can I look 
into the depth of this unfathomable water, wherein, as 
momentary lights glanced into it, I have had glimpses 
of buried treasure and other things submerged. It 
was appointed that the book should be shut with a 
spring, forever and forever, when I had but read a 
page. It was appointed that the water should be 
locked in an eternal frost, when the light was playing 
on its surface, and I stood in ignorance on the shore. 
My friend is dead, my neighbor is dead, my love, the 
darling of my soul, is dead; it is the inexorable con- 
solidation and perpetuation of the secret that was al- 
ways in that individuality, and which I shall carry 
in mine to my life's end. In any of the burial places 
of this city through which I pass, is there a sleeper 
more inscrutable than its busy inhabitants are, in their 
innermost personality, to me, or than I am to them?" 

All the endeavors to make conscience a result- 
ing inner response to external environment, 
whether in social interpretation, or legal ex- 
planation, or evolutionary analysis, fail to ac- 
count for its authoritative, apodictive com- 
mands. Conscience neither seeks its authority 
from the things of the world, nor endeavors to 
justify its laws by them. For one surely does 
not reason one's self into an obligation which re- 
quires sacrifice even unto death. To be sure, the 
actual ethical responses are considered primarily, 
or at least mainly, emotional, but this does not 



48 AUTHORITY 

account for the strong sentiment of the objec- 
tiveness of obligation, and sanction of duty and 
ought. But more than this, the social self is 
always transcended by the ideal self. As Pro- 
fessor Baldwin remarks : 

"The social influence which determines the develop- 
ment of conscience almost entirely in its earlier stages 
is itself transcended, in the rational or self-conscious 
organization of the moral life; so that the conscience 
becomes not merely a social self, but an ideal self." 



CHAPTER IV 
MORAL OBLIGATION 

The subjective activity in the assimilating of 
the ethical verdicts under criticism and compari- 
son has been widely discussed in recent studies 
in the analysis or development of conscience. 
The existence of heterogeneous codes is no 
longer considered a valid argument against the 
validity of conscience, since we find the authori- 
tative claim in the personal application of every 
form. Although the individual moral norm is 
one's own construction out of the available ethi- 
cal judgments to which the person turns, this 
standard exercises absolute authority. On the 
validity of its unconditioned demands, the indi- 
vidual will stake his life. " Belief," says Pro- 
fessor Baldwin, "is the personal endorsement of 
reality." Pascal's dictum, "Verite en deca des 
Pyrenees, erreur au dela," loses its force upon 
close observation, and Benthan's remark, "Con- 
science is a thing of fictitious existence supposed 
to occupy a seat in the mind," results from the 
legal conception which regulates the acting ab 
extra. 

It is plain that there must be an inner indica- 

49 



50 AUTHORITY 

tion of outer import, which gives an authorita- 
tive dictum. On all sides we have primarily the 
subjective reference, for the moral and religious 
life announces itself as a private and individual 
concern in individual experience. The legal 
command "Thou shalt" or "Thou shalt not" is to 
be obeyed only as responded to by the "I ought" 
or "I ought not" of the individual. The specific 
application of ! the right is left with the indi- 
vidual, and cannot be rigidly controlled by the 
normative and mandatory legal construction un- 
der which the personal conscience has developed. 
Moral, religious, and civil law are to be main- 
tained, rather than carried out, because the ex- 
clusive uniqueness of the individual refuses to be 
completely subsumed under law. And although 
Kant proclaimed an erring conscience a chimera, 
his impersonal categorical imperative falls back 
on the concrete experience of single individuals. 
When he admits that judgment may err as to the 
form in a particular duty, he lifts conscience out 
of the moral judgment as such, and identifies it 
with the ultimate principles of Practical Reason. 
This is the will-form as carried by the acting in- 
dividual, and requires personal application. In 
our age of enthusiastic social study, those who 
have not gone to the extreme of lodging author- 
ity in ethical and religious belief in the "collec- 
tive consciousness" and its stored-up wisdom of 



MORAL OBLIGATION 51 

custom and tradition, translate the Kantian will 
of Practical Reason into a social will. Yet, these 
customs admittedly yield a determination not of 
an absolute and final, but only of a relative kind. 
We have the attempt, therefore, to unite subjec- 
tive will with the impersonal order of social con- 
tent. And this raises the question again as to 
the final decision, or the seat of authority. Each 
man is the child of his age only as to the form of 
his problems. Maurice in his lecture on casu- 
istry calls attention to the fact that, in behalf 
of ethical and religious improvement, appeals are 
made to public opinion to enforce the claims of 
the individual conscience on the one hand, and on 
the other to the individual conscience to bear up 
public opinion; showing, thus, that the point of 
leverage is with the individual, embodied in so- 
cial ethics. 

The worth and authority of the individual 
agent is assumed to be derived from, and sus- 
tained by, the community in the evolutionary 
views, though it is admitted that "natural selec- 
tion" has been overemphasized in its dual opera- 
tion with "the struggle for existence" or "adap- 
tation to environment." How are these func- 
tions related? How does the struggling indi- 
vidual find his place in this unfinished world, ac- 
cording to the plan of the whole? Is it to be 
computed, or is the world's explanation to be 



52 AUTHORITY 

apprehended only by faith? Spencer's evolu- 
tionary definition of conscience as being "the 
control of the less evolved feelings by the more 
evolved ones" projects from without those princi- 
ples that we must find within. Moreover the 
decision as to which is the more evolved feeling 
is to be made by this individual, reacting rather 
than acting. 

Evolution has been the watchword of the "en- 
lightment" of the latter half of the nineteenth 
century. It has been trumpeted about as a 
neverfailing explanation for any and all prob- 
lems. The much-famed theory is just now be- 
ing modified and broken down in the biological 
field from which it boldly invaded the domain of 
philosophy and theology. Darwin himself wrote 
to the biologist, Ernest Haeckel: "Your bold- 
ness makes me shudder," when he perceived the 
daring assumptions to which his own hypothesis 
had given rise. The discussion of the evolution 
of organic life was soon carried into every field, 
till daring logical minds declared God Himself 
to be in the process of evolution. This more- 
over was an easy step to take for the age under 
the influence of the prevailing pantheistic phi- 
losophy. The famous Dutch botanist, Hugo De 
Vries, however, in his "Mutationstheorie" comes 
to a conclusion the very opposite of Darwin's, 



MORAL OBLIGATION 53 

concerning the origin of species. We quote (p. 
22): 

"Quite universally the doctrine of selection is con- 
sidered inadequate, the species cannot have arisen 
through fargoing individual or fluctuating variation 
by means of selection in indetermined directions. 
Species do not originate, but disappear through the 
struggle for existence and through natural selection." 

Numerous attacks are being made on the 
evolutionary dogma, now that its spell is broken. 
We mention: Professor Dr. A. Pauly: "Wahres 
und falsches, in Darwin's Lehre"; Prof. Dr. 
Kassowitz; "Die Krisis des Darwinismus" ; Dr. 
Dennert; "Vom Sterbelager des Darwinismus, 
etc. 

We are concerned here only with bearings of 
evolution on human personality under authority. 
Dr. P. T. Forsyth, in an able article entitled 
"Some Christian Aspects of Evolution," in the 
London Quarterly Review, October, 1905, 
dwells on this point. He says: 

"The doctrine of evolution substitutes process for 
effort. We are caught in a tendency which, we are 
taught, no effort can control. We are borne along on 
a tide against which we cannot swim. We learn the 
fruitlessness of moral struggle against these age-long 



54 AUTHORITY 

forces that have submerged so many of the best moral 
attempts. We climb a climbing wave. We are crea- 
tures of the time and the world. We lose the moral 
vigor which resists a majority, the public or the priest, 
and the moral sympathy which helps to its feet the in- 
ferior race or the struggling right. We learn to dis- 
trust truth itself. It is all relative only, something 
in the making, and something which we can make. And 
it is all over with truth when man feels himself its crea- 
tor. His truth is not worth martyrdom then, for it is 
too changing to be an object of faith; and it is hardly 
worth propagandism, for it will change ere he can con- 
vert an audience, to say nothing of a generation. Real- 
ity gives way under our feet, and standards vanish like 
stars falling from heaven. Growth, it comes to be 
thought, does not issue from being, but being from 
growth. Man becomes his own maker and he has a 
moral fool for his product." 



CHAPTER V 
THE PERSONAL ELEMENT IN LAW 

In France "social morality" has largely sup- 
planted "individual morality." Individual re- 
sponsibilities for ethical behavior are pooled in 
a national morality "sans obligation ni sanction'' 
as Guyau tries to show. According to the gen- 
eral verdict, however, this morality lacks, exactly 
the strength of sincere, personal endorsement. 
The utilitarian conception is but little better, for 
the main reason that the estimate of worth and 
utility can never attain more than relative im- 
portance. There is no nou ot& from which 
to compute the greatest happiness of the great- 
est number. There must be an internal indica- 
tion of outer import, which gives an authorita- 
tive dictum. On all sides we have primarily 
the subjective reference, for the moral and re- 
ligious life announces itself as a private and per- 
sonal concern. The legal command, "Thou 
shalt" or "Thou shalt not" is to be obeyed only 
as responded to by the "I ought," or "I ought 
not" of the individual. The specific applica- 
tion of the right is left with the individual and 
cannot be rigidly controlled by the normative and 

55 



56 AUTHORITY 

mandatory legal construction under which the 
personal conscience has developed. Moral, re- 
ligious, and civil law are to be maintained, 
rather than carried out, because of a marginal lib- 
erty left to the exclusive uniqueness of the indi- 
vidual which cannot be approached ab extra. 

The common law of the Anglo-Saxon nations 
shows a superior wisdom, and more practical 
dealing with individual life, than the Roman 
law. For, in approaching individual cases ac- 
cording to precedents, the common law is en- 
abled to do more justice to the individual than 
can the Roman law since it subsumes the cases 
under its code. It should, however, be observed 
that extenuating and aggravating circumstances 
are modifying the rigidity of the theoretic con- 
ception of the Roman code. It is to be noted, 
also, that many jurists give the application of 
Roman law a psychological turn, whilst there is 
a disposition throughout with sane judges and 
legislators to avoid detailed prescriptions. "De 
minimis non curat lex." Similarly in medicine, 
education, etc., the general, theoretic rule can- 
not be applied without reference to the indi- 
vidual case. Not a disease but a case is treated. 

HofTding well observes in his "Problems of 
Philosophy" : 

"The law, the demand, must be differentiated ac- 



PERSONAL ELEMENT IN LAW 57 

cording to the different individuals if it is really to be 
identical for all. Each one should be taxed according 
to his ability. There must be a thorough-going indi- 
vidualizing of the ethical demand, lest Ethics itself 
transgress the dictum that personality is always an end, 
never a mere means. The ethical demand must be no 
abstract or external command, but should correspond 
to the ethical possibilities of the individual person, and 
be adapted to develop them. Legislation and peda- 
gogics cannot at this point be absolutely sundered. But 
in individual cases this makes ethical decisions difficult. 
Ethical thought can formulate no law that could be ap- 
plied offhand to all the manifold emergencies of life. 
Nevertheless, we must assume that in every individual 
case only a single decision can be the completely right 



It is felt that the objective code cannot well 
invade private life too far. Sumptuary laws 
fall under this condemnation. Ethical be- 
havior and religious life cannot be built into the 
legal constraining fabric. Yet, strange to say, 
in America people have willingly consented to 
be ruled in these matters to an extent where 
Europeans would object to the legislation as 
meddling with private concerns. I refer to cur- 
few laws, laws against smoking, dress, drinking, 
etc. In olden time, the so-called "blue-laws" 
went farther still. It should be remarked, how- 
ever, that all these compulsory laws were in- 



58 AUTHORITY 

itiated by a strong ethical interest and concern. 
But it is also to be remembered that, as any of 
these ethical endeavors begins to lean on the 
backing of legal constraint, this is an indication 
that the ethical interest itself is on the wane. 
The prohibitionists think that the whole evil of 
intemperance will be remedied by the removal of 
the objects of abuse and misuse. Interest is un- 
duly centered on the milieu and the circumstances 
under which the moral life manifests itself, and 
so legal encroachment makes its appearance. 
But even in law each case should be judged on 
its own merit within the adumbration of the 
proper legal regulations. Disintegration of 
faith in received codes — apart from inner life- 
experiences which remain primary — may find 
explanation largely in the conflicts occasioned 
between different opinions, morals and religions 
by the intensified inter-communication of the 
various parts of the world. Any conflict or com- 
parison of opinions involves unsettlement, un- 
less the convictions are deep-rooted, which is fre- 
quently not the case in ethics, religion, or civic 
matters. 

Ladd says in his "Philosophy of Conduct": 

"The authoritative standard leaves the criteria, sanc- 
tions, and ideals of conduct just where they ought to 
be left by all merely descriptive, historical ethics — 



PERSONAL ELEMENT IN LAW 59 

namely in the consciousness of the multitude of the in- 
dividuals that respond to the stimulus of external con- 
ditions, with appropriate ethical feelings and ideas." 

But Ladd, although conceding the inadequacy 
of an external criterion for ethical conduct as 
much as an a priori and impersonal formula, pays 
profound and eloquent homage to the moral 
phenomena of human life as disclosing Reality 
itself. 

"There is much, however, in this lofty maintaining 
of the claims of universal reason to have somewhere hid- 
den in its depths the eternal truth and unchanging prin- 
ciples of all morality, which excites the enthusiasm and 
commands the respect of the reflective mind. The most 
unchanging truths, we feel, are moral. The profound- 
est insights into the heart of Reality are born of an eth- 
ical nature. Man's kinship with the Infinite and the 
Eternal is most intimate and strong only when he has 
arrived at the maturity of self-consciousness. Things 
may be in an unceasing flux, and all the physical struc- 
tures of human skill may crumble away. Even the ele- 
ments may melt with fervent heat, and the heavens 
themselves be rolled up like a parchment-scroll. But 
the obligations of duty can never be abated, the good 
of righteous living does not fade; the moral ideal loses 
none of its awful beauty, or of its unconditional value. 
Over and beyond the last dim and fading vision of the 
things that minister to a sensuous good, there rises the 
spiritual vision of a good that is lasting and supreme. 



60 AUTHORITY 

And in this good virtue is not the least, but rather the 
most important, factor; for it is the Ideal which lures 
on and encourages and commands the moral conscious- 
ness of humanity." 

We must now face more clearly the issue, that 
in the last analysis we stand individually before 
this spiritual ideal in the forms of, and in co- 
operation with, others through our social milieu. 
We must, therefore, not attach too much impor- 
tance to the forms and surroundings, since the 
purport of social phenomena is to be interpreted 
always and responded to by the acting subject. 
Paulsen has well expressed the secondary im- 
portance of legalism. He says : 

"The legal order may be brought in as a mechanism 
in the service of the good whose function is to harmon- 
ize many individual forces, with the least expenditure of 
energy, or to balance many partially crossing spheres 
of interest. But the legal system can never realize this 
end, for in acting mechanically it does not act accord- 
ing to the requirements of a particular case. In legal 
systems we see the same thing, individual cases are de- 
cided according to general rules even when deciding 
specific cases by themselves ; the method of procedure is 
to subsume the individual case under a general rule to 
ascertain the right." 

One may say, therefore, that the law is ex- 



PERSONAL ELEMENT IN LAW 61 

tremely useful in sustaining the public con- 
science, if there be only due reverence for the 
law, and if the law is not too rigidly applied in 
its uniformity, but so as to leave room for indi- 
vidual variety in subsumed cases. 

Fouillee remarks: "In the French idea of 
liberty the notion of society is never absent, lib- 
erty is conceived of as a social power in the sense 
that it is limited and regulated by society, and 
that the liberty of the one implies the same liberty 
for others. Liberty appears then as a solidarity 
of individual activities in society. This circum- 
stance gave occasion for accusing the French, 
not without reason, of thinking rather of 
equality than of liberty, and of not showing in 
practice that individual initiative, indifferent to 
others, which is so frequent among other races 
where the sentiment of 'self is more developed." 
Fouillee feels that the claims of this subjective 
reference are to be admitted when he continues a 
little further on: "The equality is then not the 
mechanical equalization of those who are un- 
equal, rather is it the same liberty of manifest- 
ing these inequalities in the bosom of society." 



CHAPTER VI 

ROMAN CATHOLICISM AND FREE- 
DOM OF CONSCIENCE 

We have remarked in reference to French so- 
ciologists that they especially minimize or elimi- 
nate the individual reference, not only because of 
the prevailing strong social sentiments, but also 
because of the Roman Catholic tradition with 
its emphatic legal morality of injunctions and 
good works and no private conscience. 
Desmoulins in considering the question, "a quoi 
tient la superiority des Anglo-Saxons?" finds 
this superiority in the individuality, the personal 
initiative and the supremacy of the conscience 
which go naturally with the reformed religion. 
The apologists of the confession invariably come 
as near to the protestant position on the freedom 
of conscience as they possibly can. "The priest 
does not ask. It is you who confess your sins in 
his presence. That is between you and God." 
Yet, who would deny that this violates the pri- 
vate conscience, and challenges the watchword 
of the great Orange in the struggle of the refor- 
mation: "Conscience is God's province." It 
is natural that by disregard for individual con- 

62 



ROMAN CATHOLICISM 63 

science the zealous Jesuits could emphasize and 
cultivate obedience to an unusual degree. As 
some military ideas would have it : "Loyal to the 
commander, but dead to the issue!" "My coun- 
try right or wrong, my country !" The main- 
spring of man's finer sensibilities asserts itself, 
however, in the end. Even Sir James Turner 
with his checkered military career writes : 

"I had swallowed without chewing, in Germanie, a 
very dangerous maxime, which militarie men there too 
much follow; which was, that so we serve our master 
honnestlie, it is no matter what master we serve; so, 
without examination of the justice of the quarrell, or 
regard of my duetie to either prince or countrey, I re- 
solved to goe with that ship I first rencounterd." 

Unless, however, a man is aflame with the 
issue, his loyalty to the commander sustained in 
the task undertaken, no real, faithful service can 
be rendered, because our conduct must come 
home to us individually. Lowell brings this out 
well in the sentiments of a disbeliever in war : 

" Es fer war, I call it murder, — 

There you hev it plain an' flat ; 
I don't want to go no furder 

Than my Testyment fer that; 
<xod hez sed so plump an' fairly, 

It's ez long ez it is broad, 
An' you've gut to git up airly 

Ef you want to take in God. 



64 AUTHORITY 

" 'Taint your eppyletts an' feathers 

Make the thing a grain more right; 
'Taint afollerin' your bell-wethers 

Will excuse ye in His sight; 
Ef you take a sword an' dror it, 

An' go stick a feller thru, 
Guv'ment ain't to answer for it, 

God'll send the bill to you." 

It is an interesting subject to consider the 
sphere of official and private assumption of an- 
other's responsibility in matters of moral obliga- 
tion. In Roman law the agent is in some in- 
stances dangerously near being considered a mere 
means. This matter appears again with big 
concerns in regard to the private initiative to be 
left to their employees. Individual authority, 
its private initiative and responsibility have to 
be reconciled in co-operating manner with the 
efficiency of the whole. In all these matters it 
becomes strikingly apparent how strong a ground 
the Calvinistic principle has in its vindication of 
the individual domain of conscience and indi- 
viduality. 

The Roman Catholic view of an Infallible 
Church implies the subordination of the indi- 
vidual conscience and private judgment to the 
universally valid supervision of the authoritative 
priesthood. This prevailing legal tendency is 
frankly admitted by the Church. There is no 



ROMAN CATHOLICISM 65 

quest for a final authority. The Church mounts 
guard with absolute security over the private ap- 
prehension of moral and religious truth. Even 
Abbe Loisy, recently dismissed from that church 
claims that he does not question the Church's 
teachings, but only the possibility of demonstrat- 
ing them from the Gospels according to the re- 
ceived principles and methods of scientific criti- 
cism. Thus he claimed rights as a critic and the- 
ologian, which the Church, in direct control 
over the apologetic problems which these studies 
may raise, does not allow. The Vatican canon 
says: "De Fide et ratione: Si quis dixerit: disci- 
plinas humanas ea cum libertate tractandus esse, 
ut earum assertiones, etsi doctrinae revelatae ad- 
versentur tamquam verae retineri, neque ab 
Ecclesia proscribi possint — anathema sit." Re- 
nan quotes the encyclical of Gregory XVI in an 
essay on "Lamenais," who raised the far-reach- 
ing disturbing individual-investigation and pri- 
vate-judgment for the Church whose uniformity 
submerges all individual life as independent fac- 
tors: "Atque ex hoc putidissimo indifferentis- 
simi f onte absurda ilia fruit ac erronea sententia, 
seu potius deliramentum, asserendam esse ac vin- 
dicandum cuilibet libertatem conscientiae." In 
the same encyclical Augustine's words are 
quoted: "At quae pejor mors animae quam lib- 
ertas erroris." Renan also quotes a letter from 



66 AUTHORITY 

Cardinal Pacca to Lamenais, relative to the en- 
cyclical: "The Holy Father disapproves also and 
even rejects the doctrines relating to the liberty 
of cults and civil and political liberty." When, 
therefore, Cardinal Gibbons says in "The Faith 
of our Fathers": "It should be borne in mind 
that neither God nor His Church forces anyone's 
conscience. To all he says by the mouth of His 
prophet : 'Behold I set before you the way of life 
and the way of death' ( Jer. xxi, 8) . The choice 
rest with yourselves," he is addressing only the 
non-Roman Catholic. For as a Roman Catho- 
lic bishop wrote to a Calvinistic friend of mine: 
"The Catholics," it has been said, "rely on the 
inspired men, not on an inspired book." And 
the canonicity of the Holy Scriptures is held to 
rest solely on the authority of the Roman Catho- 
lic Church. Religious authority in Protestant- 
ism, however, rests upon the sanction of inward 
conviction in her creed ; the Bible and the church 
are norms from which the individual starts in 
his own interpretation. 

Cardinal Gibbons discusses this standpoint in 
the following manner: 

"Let us see whether an infallible Bible is sufficient for 
you. Either you are infallibly certain that your inter- 
pretation of the Bible is correct or you are not. If 
you are infallibly certain, then you assert for yourself, 



ROMAN CATHOLICISM 67 

and of course for every reader of the Scripture, a per- 
sonal infallibility which you deny to the Pope, and 
which we claim only for him. You make every man his 
own Pope. If you are not infallibly certain that you 
understand the true meaning of the whole Bible — and 
this is a privilege you do not claim — then, I ask, of what 
use to you is the objective infallibility of the Bible with- 
out an infallible interpreter !" 

The argument requires no refutation, but is 
adduced as another concrete instance of the neg- 
lect of the essential subjective reference in indi- 
vidual interpretation. Truth, morality, religion, 
art, ideals have to become subjective to be of any 
avail to us. This Protestant assertion of indi- 
vidualism is well expressed in the words of a 
critic quoted by Fouillee : 

"An eminent critic has said that Protestantism was 
the protest of the individual against the social charac- 
ter of Catholicism. That is not, to be sure, a complete 
or adequate definition of the Reformation, but one may 
concede that the Reformation was a revolt of individu- 
alism, moreover a just exaltation of the individual con- 
science, individual faith and individual religion, too 
much stifled under the forms, the works — and the col- 
lective organization of Catholicism." 

We fall back, then, on the old evangelical 
position in which the soul finds satisfaction in its 



68 AUTHORITY 

personal effort to reach the transcendent ideal. 
The sphere of Conduct moreover is not con- 
ceived as the mere fact of behavior but as re- 
lated to a transcendent ideal and is also elevated 
into the concreteness of personality, giving it re- 
ligious significance. And this religious signifi- 
cance sustains "mere morality" with God; and 
for the solitary soul, the one supreme concern of 
each man, religion discloses duty as personal re- 
sponsibility to divine commands, not, however, 
in the Kantian sense "as if," but "because of the 
impress of God." As Riiekert says in his beau- 
tiful epigram : 

" Before every one stands the picture of what he should 
become, 
As long as he has not attained unto it, his peace is not 
complete." 
("Vor jedem steht ein Bild des das er werden soil 
So lang er das nicht ist, ist nicht sein Frieden voll.") 

Luther, laying hold upon the inner conviction 
of his own soul, declares it inadvisable to under- 
take anything against his conscience, even in the 
face of an august assembly, which represented 
both the ecclesiastical and worldly power. When 
we remember that any individual claims deviat- 
ing from the iron-bound scholastic system of the 
middle ages were at once met with the awful 
obloquy and opprobrium of heresy, this act of 



ROMAN CATHOLICISM 69 

the Protestant leader was as heroic a stand as 
was ever taken by any hero in the course of his- 
tory. If Luther seized upon the principle which 
takes hold of Reality, then he was right, in spite 
of the resulting schisms, in breaking the legisla- 
tive codes before the variegated inner life of the 
multitude. The whole historic structure of the 
Catholic Church, identifying the invisible within 
with the expressed visibility, is a legalistic pro- 
cedure, the expression of something in its essence 
never wholly expressed, but hidden in the hearts 
of the "collective Christ," the invisible church of 
believers. Dr. A. Kuyper says in his "Lectures 
on Calvinism": 

"Rome perceived clearly how liberty of conscience 
must loosen the foundations of the unity of the visible 
church, and therefore she opposed it. But on the other 
hand it must be admitted that Calvinism, by praising 
aloud liberty of conscience, has in principle abandoned 
every absolute characteristic of the visible church. As 
soon as in the bosom of one and the same people the 
conscience of one half witnessed against that of the 
other half, the breach has been accomplished, and pla- 
cards were no longer of any avail. As early as 1649 
it was declared that persecution, for faith's sake, was 
* a spiritual murder, an assassination of the soul, a rage 
against God himself, the most horrible of sins.' " 

Maurice couples "liberty of conscience" with 



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the expression "conscience of liberty" to explain 
its individualistic meaning. The expression of 
individual life is the strongest where the objec- 
tive norm has a less predominating influence. 
Wherever conscience of liberty is, there also the 
cry for liberty of conscience is raised against a 
ruling code which dictates from without. Dr. 
Kuyper says again in his ' 'Lectures on Calvin- 
ism" : 

"I maintain the sovereignty of conscience, as the pal- 
ladium of all personal liberty, in this sense — that con- 
science is never subject to man but always and ever to 
God Almighty. This need of the personal liberty of 
conscience, however, does not immediately assert itself. 
It does not express itself with emphasis in the child, but 
only in the mature man ; and in the same way it mostly 
slumbers among undeveloped peoples, and is irresist- 
ible only among highly developed nations. A man of 
ripe and rich development will rather become a volun- 
tary exile, will rather suffer imprisonment, nay even 
sacrifice life itself than suffer constraint in the forum 
of his conscience. And the deeply rooted repugnance 
against the Inquisition, which for three long centuries 
would not be assuaged, grew up from the conviction 
that its practices violated and assaulted human life in 



CHAPTER VII 

LEGALISM IN MORALS AND 
RELIGION 

Prof. Palmer observes in "The Field of 
Ethics": 

"The law is inadequate to the moral demand because 
it is too objective. By the law the moral agent is not 
regarded primarily in himself, subjectively, i.e., with 
reference to the effects which his conduct may produce 
on his own growth and welfare. He is regarded ob- 
jectively, i.e., in relation to others, and is accounted 
good or bad according as he damages or protects other 
members of his community. And this objectivity of 
the law will oblige us to look elsewhere for a full ex- 
hibit of the moral life." 

The law fixes only a minimum requirement 
and as a mandatory norm addresses itself always 
more or less to the individual db extra, although 
it is incorporated in his social life and tradition. 
If we are to eke out the legal deficiency, we must 
enter the recesses of the heart and ask whether 
the individual is good in himself? Conformity 
to outward demands is not a sufficient evidence 
of positive virtue; the individual as personality 

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72 AUTHORITY 

is a vital factor. Schiirer in his work, "The 
Jewish People in the Time of Jesus Christ, ,, 
after the exposition of the legal practices of the 
Pharisees in the Chapter, "The Life Under the 
Law," concludes: 

"The examples brought forward will have made suffi- 
ciently evident the manner in which the moral and reli- 
gious life was conceived of and regulated from the ju- 
ristic point of view. In all questions everything de- 
pended only upon settling what was according to law, 
and that with the utmost possible care, that so the sub- 
ject might have certain directions for every individual 
case. In a word: ethics and theology were swallowed 
up in jurisprudence. The evil results of this external 
view on practical matters are very evident. And such 
results were its necessary consequence. Even in that 
most favorable case of juristic casuistry, moving on 
the whole in morally correct paths, it was in itself a 
poisoning of the moral principle, and could not but 
have a paralyzing and benumbing effect upon the vig- 
orous pulsation of the moral life. But this favorable 
case by no means occurred. When once the question 
was started: 'What have I to do to fulfil the law?' the 
temptation was obvious, that a composition with the 
letter would be chiefly aimed at, at the cost of the real 
demands of morality, nay of the proper intention of 
the law itself." 

Pollock's definition touching the regulative 
norm made mandatory to an aggregate may 



LEGALISM AND MORALS 73 

show how naturally the external emphasis in 
ethics and religion results in clubbing together 
the content of individual experiences into a legis- 
lative dictum for the aggregate. Pollock says 
in his "Jurisprudence": "Law may be regarded, 
in its essence analytically, as a command from a 
superior to an inferior; or historically, as a rule 
judicially declared to be entitled to general ob- 
servance, and therefore obligatory." It is at 
once evident that law is the rule of government- 
action, declared or created by competent au- 
thority. This rightly established authority, 
which has become law on sufficient grounds in 
the social life, furthers the inroad of legalism in 
the field of ethics. Men want a definite, au- 
thoritative expression of the inner law, and tend 
to lean on this as its standard. There is thus 
a tendency to look upon a code of morals as 
regulative, as a rule of conduct apart from that 
which the individual formulates for his guidance 
in the private pathway of life. He does not 
cross the bridge till he gets to it, but thinks at 
least of the mode of procedure, the method or 
rule by which it is to be done. 

Holland is perhaps still more specific in 
bringing out the formal, external aspect of law. 
He says in his "Jurisprudence": 

"Any particular law, properly so-called, is a general 



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rule of human action taking cognizance only of exter- 
nal acts enforced by a determinate authority, which au- 
thority is human and among human authorities that 
which is paramount in political society." 

In this definition the terms "general rule of 
human action," the "cognizance of external acts" 
only, and the enforcement "by a determinate 
authority" show that we have gotten away from 
exclusively personal subjectivity of ethics in 
the attempt to find a principle independent of 
the subjective changes in the individuals who 
constitute the social organization. The definite 
code was unwritten law long before it became 
recognized law, but the rule of life and action has 
been sufficiently externalized by public and gen- 
eral recognition so as to exercise authority as 
well ab extra as from within. The feeling of 
obligation with reference to this established law 
has not the directness of the inner witness. The 
"I ought" has been projected without, and 
stands reflected in the embodiment of an ex- 
ternal "Thou shalt." 

History, however, gives distinct warning that 
the preceptive or prescriptive rule is not enough 
in itself; the personal equation cannot be elimi- 
nated with impunity. Law is fixed and not 
plastic; deals with defined, measured duties, not 
with the infinite obligation; approaches the sub- 



LEGALISM AND MORALS 75 

ject from without, not from within; is based on 
an established moral nature rather than the 
genetic morality of the individual; is exacting, — 
and therefore, without close reference to the per- 
son addressed, — not spontaneously urging in in- 
timate relationships. For all these reasons 
legal practices are only props of ethical and re- 
ligious life, because authority in matters of con- 
science must remain with the individual. The 
Roman Catholic Church, feeling this, has applied 
the general rules of morality to specific cases; 
and the history! of casuistry shows in consequence 
the bad excesses of legal practices in the ethical 
domain. Where the conscience is not sensitive, 
the moral personality not vigorous, the social, 
conventional, legal morality is much in evidence. 
This is the case in a country like France with 
its passion for logical systems, to which even 
facts must yield. A country where the absolute 
rule has prevailed for centuries, where the king 
asserted "L'etat c'est moi" and signed "Tel est 
notre plaisir," where an abbot deplored the facts, 
because they did not conform to his system, 
where the "Prinzipienreiterei" shouted "perisse 
le monde, vivent les principes!" a country of 
cut-and-dried theories, which abolished by decree 
religion and established a cult of reason instead, 
a land of which the cold-blooded John Stuart 
Mill says that its people take logical co- 



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herence for proof and dispense with the control 
of facts. In this nation, dominated by the 
phrase, carried by the whirls of contemporary 
opinions, the legalistic inroads have fairly extin- 
guished individual, moral, and religious life. 
Here we hear of a religion of honor, of human- 
ity, of patriotism, of science, etc., as the 
prevailing notions of the day in their social 
world will have it. In France where solid, 
strong personalities are shelved by a frivolous 
majority as a "genre ennuyeux qui n'est pas 
bon" the people have suffered irreparably from 
the curse of legalism. Hugo pleads this point in 
"Les Miserables," showing how destructive the 
rigid, mechanical conception of the law is to the 
individual life. Honore de Balzac says in "Pere 
Goriot": He (Eugene de Rastignac) had seen 
the three great expressions of human society: 
Obedience, Struggle and Revolt; or the Family, 
the World and Vautrin (the convict) . He dared 
ally himself with neither. Obedience was weari- 
some, Revolt, impossible, and Struggle, uncer- 
tain. 

We quote Hugo's eloquent words against 
French legalism : 

"Javert had certainly always had the intention of re- 
turning Jean Val j ean to the law, of which Jean Valj ean 
was the captive, and of which he, Javert, was the slave. 



LEGALISM AND MORALS 77 

That, however, J avert and Jean Valjean, the man made 
to be severe, the man made to be submissive, that these 
two men, who were each the thing of the law, should 
have come to this point of setting themselves both above 
the law, was not this terrible? Jean Valjean was the 
weight on Javert's mind. His supreme anguish was the 
loss of all certainty. He felt that he was uprooted. 
The code was now but a stump in his hand. He had to 
do with scruples of an unknown species. There was in 
him a revelation of feeling entirely distinct from the 
declaration of the law, his only standard hitherto. An 
entire order of unexpected facts arose and subjugated 
him. An entire new world appeared to his soul, favor 
accepted and returned; devotion, compassion, indul- 
gence, acts of violence committed by pity upon auster- 
ity, respect of persons, the possibility of a tear in the 
eye of the law, a mysterious justice, according to God, 
going counter to justice of men. He perceived in the 
darkness the fearful rising of an unknown moral sun, 
he was horrified and blinded by it. An owl compelled 
to an eagle's gaze. He said to himself that it was true, 
then, that there were exceptions, that authority might 
be put out of countenance ; that rule might stop before 
a fact ; that everything was not framed in the text of 
the code, 

"To feel your fingers suddenly open ! To lose your 
hold, appalling thing! The projectile man no longer 
knowing his road, and recoiling! To be obliged to 
acknowledge this : infallibility is not infallible ; there 
may be an error in the dogma; all is not perfect; au- 
thority is complicate with vacillation; a cracking is 



78 AUTHORITY 

possible in the immutable ; judges are men ; the law may- 
be deceived ; the tribunals may be mistaken ! What ! 
the flaw in the cuirass of society could be found by a 
magnanimous wretch! What! a servant of the law 
could find himself suddenly caught between two crimes — 
the crime of letting a man escape and the crime of ar- 
resting him ! All was not certain in the order given by 
the state to the official. If facts did their duty they 
would be contented with being the proofs of the law; 
facts, it is God who sends them." 

Although the facts gathered from human ex- 
perience, elaborated into moral and civic codes 
have a certain authority, their forms have no au- 
thority which excludes fallibility. We must 
therefore refrain from excessive emphasis on the 
conventional or legal morality. The expressed 
morality of conformity to moral, religious, and 
civic rule may be without, or even at the cost of, 
the inner morality from which it sprang. Yet, 
as observed, the relation between the individual 
and the social ideal is close, in that the social 
morality furnishes the material for the construc- 
tion of the individual ideal in the form of per- 
sonal experience. But the evil of legalism is un- 
due encroachment upon the individual. The in- 
dividual conscience is weakened when the sub- 
jective reference of legalism is discarded. Be- 
sides, conventional, average morality, cultivates 
simply the negative virtues, the absence of ap- 



LEGALISM AND MORALS 79 

parent vices. Thus the idea of morality and re- 
ligion is conceived prevailingly and naturally as 
restraint, not as conformity to truth and right, 
as a life responsive to and expressive of a posi- 
tive principle within. The apparent opposition 
between the absolute, positive virtues born in the 
soul-life, and the ethical endeavors in the sight 
of men disappears, when we bear in mind their 
interrelation. For an understanding of our eth- 
ical life, its social expressions, we must rightly 
estimate its individual, personal ground and sup- 
port. An interview as to legitimacy of 
pleasures, addressed to well-known divines of 
different denominations, showed this in striking 
fashion. Bishop D. H. Greer, Dr. B. P. Ray- 
mond, Dr. Newman Smyth, Dr. C. H. Park- 
hurst, Dr. J. B. Remensnyder, Dr. R. Stuart 
MacArthur, Dr. E. B. Kephart and Cardinal J. 
Gibbons all concurred in acknowledging the 
complexity of the moral life, affirming "that the 
church should beware of the artificial conscience 
and the externality and superficiality of the re- 
ligious life wherever that conscience is culti- 
vated." Under the Gospel men are expected 
to walk not by chalk lines but by the law of the 
renewed mind. Morality is not determined by 
a series of specific directions. The office of the 
church is to educate the Christian conscience, 
not to impose prohibitions; to formulate 



80 AUTHORITY 

a law of comprehension, not a rule of ex- 
clusion. J. Wesley declared: "The Christian 
may not do those things which he knows are not 
for the glory of God." In the General Con- 
ference of the Methodist Episcopal Church in 
1872, however, the attempt was made to specify 
required "negative virtues." The Methodist 
Church prohibits dancing, card-playing, and 
theater-going, and practically also smoking and 
drinking. The leaning on prescriptive, con- 
crete forms defeats the purpose of the ethical law 
by weakening the moral fiber. It is apt to culti- 
vate the kind of people who are outwardly good, 
because they dare not be bad, religionists for 
whom this outward conformity, performed in 
good faith, constitutes religion, and who, there- 
fore, by fulfilling the legal minimum, incline to 
a boast possible on this basis, yet never justified. 
Least of all where the requirements met are mere 
legal demands as prescribed in social forms. 
Rather are they upheld by the law of which they 
allege themselves to be the proud supporters, in- 
asmuch as in their paraded legal observance of 
the good they are but the captives of the posi- 
tive virtue of others, elevated into normative law. 
This criticism of legal morality applies to all, but 
it is furthered by the prescriptive virtue of 
which Methodism seems to be unduly fond. It 
does not tend to raise positive, strong charac- 



LEGALISM AND MORALS 81 

ters, aims at an impossible preservation of inno- 
cence rather than at moral excellency tested and 
proved in life's struggle. 

The contents and forms of morality and reli- 
gion are assimilated from stored up tradition and 
legal codes, — but in varying degree and manner 
according to the reaction of the appropriating 
agent. On this account, the detail of judgment 
in moral action should be left to the individual. 
He must be the final arbiter in his own case, for 
motive and intention are known only to him. 
Fouillee for example admits that the subjective 
bearings are fundamental in moral and religious 
life: 

"On a voulu faire de limitation un phenomene primi- 
tif fondement de l'ordre social. Nous admettons (et 
c'est la un des principes de la doctrine des idees-forces), 
que toute representation intense, repetee, exclusive, tend 
a se faire action parceque toute representation est ac- 
compagnee d'un mouvement; mais l'imitation n'est 
qu'un corollaire de ce theoreme, non un principe. La 
tendance innee a la sympathie pour les uns et l'antipathie 
pour les autres a sans doute son expression objective 
dans l'imitation des uns et la non-imitation des autres ; 
mais c'est la seulement une des expressions de la sym- 
pathie, non la seule, selon nous ni la plus essentielle." 

("Some have tried to construe imitation as the prime 
foundation of our social order. We admit [and this is 
one of the principles of the idea-forces] that every in- 



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tense representation, repeated, exclusive, tends to turn 
into action, because every representation is accompanied 
by a motion, but imitation is only a corrollary of this 
theory, not a principle. The innate tendency has for 
some sympathy, for others antipathy, and correspond- 
ingly result its objective expression in the imitation of 
the former and in the non-imitation of the latter. But 
this is only one of the expressions of sympathy, and 
neither the only one, nor the most essential.") 






CHAPTER VIII 
INDIVIDUAL WILL 

Professor A. T. Ormond has expounded well 
the psychological ground in imitation, conscious- 
ness of kind, and conduct as vitalized social 
forms, and has shown that they all involve and 
refer to an inner activity of the subject. In an 
article on the "Social Individual" he says: 

"The touch that makes us kin is an inner touch, 
while the objective and outer motive that leads to the 
touch is either an imitative movement or a representa- 
tion that is rendered capable of a reference to the inner 
consciousness of another by means of prior association 
with inner experiences of our own. . . . The in- 
ternal or appreciative moment of the social life, as re- 
lated to our fellow-creatures in which sphere the ethical 
life functions, lies with the individual and this reaction 
of the individual involves his whole personality." 

Again in his "Foundations of Knowledge," 
Professor Ormond says: 

"We are obliged to trace the primary root of the 
sense of kind to the self in some primary individual na- 
ture, that in becoming internally conscious becomes also 

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84 AUTHORITY 

the 'fontal type' of all ends which it seeks objectively." 
"The reaction of the subject-consciousness is a re- 
action as a whole, and self-apprehension will be a func- 
tion of this mode of reaction. If we are sure of our 
self-activity, we have that assurance because we grasp 
it in an act of immediate intuition. It cannot be 
disputed, then, that we know the fact of our self- 
activity. ... If in the reactive consciousness, 
self- activity, and not simply activity that has no label 
is revealed, then it is clear that we have a qualifica- 
tion of the content as a whole which renders it not 
merely a "that," but a "what." The fact that the 
activity is taking the form of a self shows that it is 
not formless, but is defining itself as a whole." 

Therefore we do not assume a special faculty 
which assures us of our moral bearings, nor do 
we arrive at our ethical interpretations mainly 
through the intellect, but we find our moral 
obligations vested in our whole personality. We 
are in touch with the Infinite with our whole 
personality. Professor Ladd explains this fact 
by an ontological consciousness. 

"Man has an ontological consciousness. Ontological 
speculation is an essential function of the human race, 
the necessary forms of thought are insights into the 
nature of Reality. The human mind seeks after the 
unity of an explanatory Ground, and finds it, it recog- 
nizes as the inner and ultimate truth of the world that 
it is the expression, the manifestation, the realization 



INDIVIDUAL WILL 85 

of Absolute Mind. The Absolute so recognized is posi- 
tive and full; the very opposite of the Unreality, it is 
the fruitful source of all relations. It is Spirit — i. e., 
a Will self-active in the realization of ideal ends: this 
is the innermost essence of all Reality. It is the know- 
ing Subject, from which issues 'the most fundamental 
and comprehensive of all relations, that between the 
knower and what is known.' " 

If we conclude with the generally accepted 
theories that will-psychology once more pre- 
dominates over the claims of the intellect, we are 
inclined to give judgment, as such, a secondary 
place in morals and religion, but the disposition 
of the heart primary consideration. Even 
Thomas Aquinus in his Aristotelianized Chris- 
tian system defined conscience as "the disposi- 
tion to realize natural law." 

So the specific ethical feature is to be lodged 
rather in the response of the individual than in 
the content to which the response is made, 
although as one responds so is one responsible. 
On the face of it, therefore, the enlightenment 
through the wisdom of experience represented in 
tradition, civilization, dogmas, and codes is an 
immense help. The absolute worth is in the re- 
sponse; but in view of the close, organic relation 
between the subjective response and the objec- 
tive situation, to which the responding effort 
is directed, the latter is indicative of the subjec- 



86 AUTHORITY 

tive attitude. In keeping with this, the outside 
view in "ejective interpretation" infers the inner 
motive from externalized behavior. As has 
been shown, this can be only an approximate 
estimate; whilst the judgment as to its ethical 
value, which insists that good must be good for 
something, is always defeated in its computa- 
tion for the lack of a standing ground; for 
ethical systems enter upon an infinitely complex 
field of unending consequences. Moreover, the 
reaction upon the acting subject cannot be com- 
puted. The moral and religious features lie pri- 
marily with the initiative of moral behavior, 
though inextricably conjoined with the direction 
and form which takes under given surroundings 
and circumstances. 

Prof. Caldecott remarks in his "Philosophy of 
Religion' ' : 

"Modern psychologists in their various ways regard 
mental life as consisting primarily of processes of will 
directed to the satisfaction of feeling; and making use 
of intellect as instrumental. In this way they describe 
much of every individual's experience as due to himself, 
inasmuch as he has neglected to attend to vast ranges 
of objects which have only just appeared in the con- 
fines of his field of view, but killed by neglect, have 
perished. These have not been taken into experience, 
therefore, which have been made up of those objects 
which received a welcome and were attended to by per- 



INDIVIDUAL WILL 87 

sonal preference. Thus every man's world is much more 
his own creation than intellect-psychology had led us to 
suppose ; much more the product of his own personal 
choice. It is, in short, personal choice which is the 
core and pith of the life of the human soul." 

Fichte sought to account for this personal 
element when he defined a volition as the imme- 
diate consciousness of the activity of any of the 
powers of Nature within us. But will is a per- 
son's active power toward a self-chosen end, 
which mocks rationalistic schemes with the well- 
known saying: "Who is convinced against his 
will, is of the same opinion still." It reminds 
of Tennyson's 

"Our wills are ours we know not how 
Our wills are ours to make them Thine." 

The personal equation entering into our 
knowledge as a result of the grasping of facts 
with personal bias has received ample treatment 
in the discussions on "selective thinking" and 
pragmatism. They corroborate the position 
which proclaims responsibility for beliefs, and 
considers that ignorance of the right is sinful. 
Reading the damnatory clauses of the Atha- 
nasian creed in the light of their implication, 
they might appear less arbitrary than the 



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eighteen deans urged upon the Archbishops of 
Canterbury and of York that they were : 

1. Quicumque vult salvus esse, ante omnia 
opus est ut teneat catholicum fidem. 

2. Quam nisi quis integrant inviolatamque 
servaverit absque dubio in aeternum peri- 
bit. 

3. Fides autem Catholica haec est ut unum 
Deum in Trinitate, et Trinitatem in Uni- 
tate veneremur. 

The agent is infallible and changeable in 
judgments, whilst the ideal-constructions are 
made of unreliable material. The "Zeitgeist" is 
neither sufficient nor final, and the agent selects 
the materials according to his heart's intent, and 
this condemns itself in the universal sentiment 
of deficiency or sin. But it is evident that there 
is in the mass of codified wisdom an indication 
of tried experience, an experience of numberless 
creatures who have lived in touch with the Abso- 
lute. The claims of private judgments, there- 
fore, should never go to the extent of tearing 
away the heritage of the ages, or abolishing the 
intermediary functions of this embodied larger 
experience. Individualistic views of ethics stand 
in strange contrast with actual behavior. If the 
dogmas and codes do not fit, the fancy and fads 
of the day are readily espoused as a regulative 
norm. 



CHAPTER IX 
AUTHORITY IN PHILOSOPHY 

Mirabeau thundered out in matchless elo- 
quence before the convention in his address to the 
people: "If it be contrary to act against one's 
conscience, it is none the less so to form one's 
conscience after false and arbitrary principles. 
The obligation to form and enlighten one's con- 
science is anterior to the obligation to follow 
one's conscience." Hence instruction in mor- 
ality is of great importance. Professor James 
said, in an address before the University of Cali- 
fornia: "The whole function of thinking is but 
one step in the production of habits of action." 
This, of course, is the reactionary view against 
theoretic formulations, well defined by Prof. 
James as "a method for estimating the practical 
value and results of philosophical conceptions." 
It involves difficulties in charging that which is 
made such an extremely inferior affair with a 
mission too high to fulfill, namely, "the produc- 
tion of habits of action." The pragmatic 
method must be elevated into a philosophy, if it 
is to maintain itself in the world of thought. 
Philosophies, however, are rather expressive of 

89 



90 AUTHORITY 

than productive of the behavior of volitional life. 
"As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he" 
(Proverbs xxiii, 7) . This reaction is because of 
the extreme emphasis upon theoretic formula- 
tions, the logical coherence of which was 
esteemed of prime importance, without due re- 
gard to the infinite variety of life, which always 
left in each system unmanageable residua. 
Thus systems sometimes forced facts in their 
effort to secure logical consistency, though em- 
phasis on certain principles failed to treat all the 
elements in proper proportion. Yet there is a 
tendency in man which leads him to strive for a 
unified whole, a Weltanschauung. And a 
modern Weltanschauung is much easier held 
than a time-honored creed. Ex-President 
Eliot even proposes to make "a judicious selec- 
tion of beliefs" as if they were taken up or dis- 
carded at our discretion, instead of being grown 
in the very texture of our inner experiences. 
The over-emphasis on intellectualism is, how- 
ever, to be charged in a large measure to those 
who denounce the credal formulations as "intel- 
lectual gymnastics and useless logical struc- 
tures." They make education of the intellect 
the panacea for all ills, forgetting that this is not 
the main faculty of personality. It is, however, 
consistent with the social interpretation that 
slights the personal factor. 



AUTHORITY IN PHILOSOPHY 91 

Attention should be called to the illogical pro- 
cedure of discarding the codes and systems that 
constitute the inherited wisdom of the past. 
Especially is this unwise in an age in which evo- 
lutionary theories have linked us everywhere in 
the different phases of our development with the 
past. To be consistent it should teach that 
moral and religious codes are to be studied in 
order that they may teach us with the rich ex- 
perience of past generations. If Max Miiller's 
"impassable barrier" between brutes and man as 
constituted in the essential human capacity to 
transmit in language the experience of the race 
from preceding generations to those succeeding 
is denied in the interest of our kinship with the 
brutes, still the kinship of man with man must 
always be even closer and more useful. His in- 
corporated dogmas and codes may still be re- 
sorted to as embodying traditional wisdom. In 
fact the incorporation of life's experiences into 
codes is the philosophy constructed by man in 
general, whilst its systematizing and compre- 
hensive grouping is done by gifted individuals. 
As Balfour says in his "Foundations of Religious 
Belief": "Systems are and must be for the few, 
the majority of mankind are content with a 
mood or temper of the thought." Balfour 
speaks of "psychological climates" in which men 
are formed, and of the effect on their beliefs 



92 AUTHORITY 

produced by custom, education, public opinions, 
church, and myriad other silent, unnoticed influ- 
ences of "local color." 

Our inner assent is not an affair of the intel- 
lect alone ; it springs from our whole personality 
as developed in its surroundings. It is well to 
observe that the predominance of the volitional 
element in life, however, does not justify a re- 
jection of the claims of reason. Such opposi- 
tion between will and reason may easily be 
turned into a subjectivism, which will not allow 
any objective authority. Balfour's "authority" 
is the influence in the individual which prevails 
mostly with, often without, sometimes against, 
intellect in the assent given to certain creeds. 
The objective element, of course, has to be 
recognized or the result will be moral and re- 
ligious anarchy. If the volitional element of 
personality is set apart from the recognized 
codes which represent the outcome of reflected, 
reasoned experience, the individual claims will 
run riot. An objective criterion is found pro- 
visionally in the comparison of our life-experi- 
ences with the outcome of a larger, and longer- 
tried experience. This provides the co-opera- 
tion and coherence needed in the growth of civi- 
lization. To an astonishingly large extent 
the moral life relies on the verdict of others, on 
the collective mind and traditional wisdom of the 



AUTHORITY IN PHILOSOPHY 93 

past as confirmatory and corroborative. Dr. 
Stanton remarks truly: "If religious knowledge 
is to exist objectively at all and not relatively to 
the individual consciousness alone, the principle 
of authority must enter, as it does in all kind of 
knowledge." There is usually with the well-in- 
formed person an individual decision, a deliber- 
ate relegation of authority, which proceeds from 
the individual, but which means to submit by an 
act of faith to the larger wisdom of codes, 
dogmas, civil law, unwritten or written statutes, 
which consensus has established as valid guides 
for public conduct. And this intermediary 
function of traditional inheritance in regard to 
reflected, ordered experience is to be commended 
to those impatient with all restraint and law. 
Even when granting this submission to legal au- 
thority to be intermediary and provisional till it 
approves itself, such acts of faith are required 
over the whole field of human activity, and are a 
prerequisite of all knowledge. That this moral 
law imposed upon us by authority foreign to our 
personality should be more than the fallible con- 
sensus of opinion, which admits of no determi- 
nation of an absolute and final sort, is admitted. 
Yet people do lean and have to lean on each 
other in their advance in moral and religious 
life as elsewhere. Authority and example lead 
the world. As Schopenhauer said: "Urteilen 



94 AUTHORITY 

aus eigenen Mitteln ist das Vorrecht Weniger: 
die Ubrigen leitet Autoritat und Beispiel." J. 
S. Mill says in his essay on "Liberty": "In 
proportion to a man's want of confidence in his 
own solitary judgment, does he usually repose 
with the implicit trust on the infallibility of 'the 
world' in general. It was the ductile disposi- 
tion of Newman which made the writer of 'Lead 
Thou Me On' repose on the bold assumption of 
the Romish Church, instead of relying on the 
solitary witness whose Ariadne-thread winds 
through the labyrinth of numberless sentiments 
and situations of our complex life. He wanted 
his "Grammar of Assent" made out for him. It 
was lack of faith in the unfortified inwardness 
of Truth's witness which led him to put his faith 
in the definite formulations and organizations of 
Rome's visible church." 

"Denn ach, die Gotter leihen keine pfander!" 
In the changing, multifarious heterogeneity of 
codes and verdicts, the individual needs confir- 
mation; and so he is led to legal formulations. 
But in them he may find — to* use the same figure 
— not the pledge, but the very gods themselves, 
provided he truly follows the given thread in the 
conduct of his life — the unanalyzable ought-feel- 
ing, the simple sentiment of obligation, his con- 
science. 

Formulated systems may be little known by 



AUTHORITY IN PHILOSOPHY 95 

the mass of men, yet all contribute to some ex- 
tent to the ever-increasing amount of incorpo- 
rated life-experiences as the influences of their 
lives pass into the sum-total of human civiliza- 
tion. To understand this aright is the phi- 
losophy of all ages. Adjustment to the world 
is personal. The Weltanschauung gained from 
some individual viewpoint must be corrected by 
the added wisdom of a larger horizon. And this 
comes from legalism, the creation of the "ob- 
jective mind" which is the unsystematized philos- 
ophy of the past generations of men. 

Thus becomes philosophic study; do <pdoao<pia 
dXXa <pdoao<p£tv. 



CHAPTER X 

PHILOSOPHIES OF THE DAY AND 
REVEALED AUTHORITY 

There is no greater blunder than to set 
oneself against what the past offers as codes of 
tried experience. The Ritschlian cry of "re- 
ligion without theology," and its declaration, "I 
must not theologically affirm what I have not re- 
ligiously experienced," is an unwarranted asser- 
tion of lawlessness, which would at once be 
recognized as absurd in civil law. This protest, 
however, is made almost exclusively against 
moral and religious codes. If these doctrines 
are only men's formulations, yet they are accu- 
mulated verdicts of the moral and religious ex- 
perience of vast ranges. Is not the individual 
rash, therefore, in seeking "emancipation" from 
the restraint which such codes put upon him? 
Instead of asserting his unaided views against 
those codes, he should rather make fair trial of 
them by personal interpretation with the convic- 
tion that these codes will be understood better 
as they are lived. But if they contain the reve- 
lation of divine truth of supernatural origin, then 
the incapacity to perceive and receive the doc- 

96 



REVEALED AUTHORITY 97 

trine means simply that the age is lacking in 
moral fiber. 

Dr. Swete says: "Faith is in the last analysis 
the act of the will and not of the intellect, in its 
essence a moral act." It is the recognition of 
that which announces itself as foreign, as other 
than self, to which the will bends as the 
volitional life is guided in its responses. It is an 
essentially false verdict of the inner experiences 
of soul-life to refuse an objective criterion for 
our moral and religious life on the ground that 
dogmas are derivative and are not the experi- 
ences themselves. If immediate experiences an- 
nounce themselves as having certain causes, we 
should not interpret them as merely subjective. 
Just as on the simple testimony of our percep- 
tive faculty we believe in the existence of object 
perceived and subject perceiving, so we should 
also, in our ethical depositions, take the verdicts 
of the moral sense as veracious. If the artistic, 
poetical, and religious sentiments disclose a 
cognitive apprehension of feeling, then we should 
take account of this in the same way. The phe- 
nomena of the inner life should be treated in 
the same way as all other facts, not refused, but 
used. It is reversing things, to say, though 
faith projects the reality to which the religious 
life testifies, that faith is not from God, but 
postulates Him to unite the valuable with the 



98 AUTHORITY 

existing. To keep us in a mass of unexplained 
experiences under an unwarranted assumption of 
subjectivity, is, to force an agnosticism on us for 
the sake of that moral and religious anarchy 
which proclaims, De moribus non est disputan- 
dum. As Dr. Rittelmeyer said: "Choice is free 
for each individual, for the highest values, as 
modern ethics maintain, are like the final ideas of 
a Weltanschauung, a-logical (a-logisch), that is, 
they cannot be forced upon anyone by argu- 
ments of the understanding." This involves 
neither mere subjectivity, nor independence of 
all objective criteria to its exclusion of intellec- 
tual verification. It rather means that ration- 
alism declares its own bankruptcy. In life it- 
self we find not only the objective norm but also 
the justification of the moral life. In spite of the 
assumed subjectivity, reference is always made 
to the vast deposits of religious and moral life 
with the implicit admission of the truthfulness 
of their contents. The objection that the truth 
of religious inheritance should not be taught, but 
experienced, simply assails the deductive method 
for an exclusive right of the inductive. This 
analytical temper and inductive spirit makes bold 
claims in a materialistic atmosphere, but is in a 
far deeper sense than is usually urged against it 
incapable of constructive work. Indeed! "Die 



REVEALED AUTHORITY 99 

Telle habt Ihr in die Hand. Fehlt Ihnen jedoch 
das lebendige Band." 

Prof. Royce in an able discussion on the 
psychological weakness of Pragmatism shows 
convincingly that the abuse of deductive reason- 
ing and the syllogism is largely due to misunder- 
standing of its nature, and overlooks the im- 
mense fecundity in life of the syllogism. Rela- 
tions will continue to play an important part in 
life. Balfour says : "It is authority rather than 
reason to which in the main we owe, not religion 
only, but ethics and politics." He ridicules the 
idea of a community of which the members 
should set out to examine deliberately the 
grounds on which their moral, religious, and 
civic life rests. This is, however, what people 
who refuse the instruction of legal and religious 
codes, practically propose. Not even in exact 
science does the learner get his information ex- 
clusively by his own experience, refusing the ex- 
perience of others, including that of the past. 
Those who refuse assent to another authority 
than that which is absolutely final, usually do 
not admit such authority, but fall in with fallible 
authorities. They recognize at least the desir- 
ability of unconditioned good on which to stake 
the issues of our life in small and great things, in 
the wear and tear of daily duties, as in the heroic 



100 AUTHORITY 

efforts of sacrifice. Since we do not — and can- 
not — encompass all of life's experiences in our 
earthly days, it is well to see life, if not wholly, 
at least as a whole. This is made possible by 
the constant incorporation of the varied experi- 
ences of life in the world's civilization. This 
civilization becomes ever more mingled, fused, 
and enriched by contributions from private ex- 
periences molding the appropriated material of 
social life. Though codified experience, law, 
dogma, and code are of changing material in 
time, yet the expression of the Absolute is in 
them. The question is, how do we stand related 
to this world of experience? Are we shutting 
ourselves up in partial views, or do we attempt 
to take in the fullness of complex life in its true 
proportions ? 

It is significant that, though philosophy as 
a discipline is not in favor, there is a demand 
for "integration of studies," whereas we have 
had heretofore at best only a "correlation 
of studies." Anything presents every kind of 
problem; if we follow specific subjects far 
enough, we become involved in other studies. 
Our age is productive of studies which are indi- 
cated by the coupling of branches, formerly 
always pursued in separateness. We are led 
from the particular to the whole; in the study of 
the particular, we encounter the whole ; we travel 



REVEALED AUTHORITY 101 

on every road from the periphery to the center. 
As in Goethe's poem: > 

"Willst Du ins Unendliche schreiten, 
Geh' nur im Endlichen nach alien Seiten ! 
Willst Du dich am Ganzen erquicken, 
So miiszt Du das Ganze im Kleinsten erblicken." 

or again in his paradox, 

"Was ist das Allgemeine? Der einzelne Fall. 
Was ist das Besondere? Millionen Falle." 

This temper of scientific pursuit compensates 
to some extent for the lack of specific philo- 
sophic discipline. Flint remarks, in the Princeton 
Review, 1878: "What has to be viewed in rela- 
tion to primary and efficient, and ultimate final 
causes, are the results of all sciences." Andrew 
Seth says : "It is with the ultimate synthesis that 
philosophy concerns itself ; it has to show that the 
subject matter which we are dealing with in de- 
tail really is a whole, consisting of articulated 
members." The small philosopher, the detail 
and retail student of manual and of text book, 
has created a separation between the different 
branches of study that threatens seriously the 
harmonious conception of life. E. Halevy gives 
a gloomy outlook in his report on philosophy in 



102 AUTHORITY 

Germany in Revue Internationale de Ven- 
seignement, 1896. 

"No philosophic spirit presides any more over the 
work in the universities. The result is that through 
the lack of philosophic discipline, they have fallen vic- 
tims to a nationalistic and socialistic political economy. 
Practical materialism, whose highest form is "National- 
oekonomie," flourishes in the chairs of the universities, 
laboratories of collectivism. With the students of the 
German universities one feels sadly the lack of a pre- 
liminary philosophic training in the secondary schools." 

It is not strange that not only Wundt, 
Eucken, Ziegler, Kapper and Paulsen, but 
Virchow and even Haeckel call for a revival of 
the philosophic spirit, which shall unify and 
articulate the separate branches of learning. 
This, in order that, in spite of the study of 
manuals and specialities, the student may cre- 
ate a harmonious, consistent world-view, instead 
of staring ignorantly at half-perceived problems 
which needs must arise behind the mass of facts. 
For, however grouped, they will come to the in- 
dividual observer with the insistent demand as to 
their purport; "what," "whence," "whither." It 
is the old, old problem of reconciling time and 
eternity, the many and the one, the changeable 
and the changeless, the persistent quest of the 
mind. The intellect may not solve it, but faith 



REVEALED AUTHORITY 103 

sees the Eternal in fullness, the One in the many, 
the Changeless in the changing, the Absolute in 
the relative. Such authority is not discovered, 
not arrived at by long disquisition. We were 
graciously placed in the midst of the Absolute 
Ideal, dissolving all legal questions or vacilla- 
tions by the assurance, "I am the Way, the 
Truth, and the Life." In the midst of disin- 
tegrating, unmoral legalism, which becomes 
skeptical of its sanctions, we confidently appeal 
to this revelation of Absolute Truth, as once de- 
livered unto the saints, and over which the 
church stands guardian ! 



PART II 

METAPHYSICAL AND 
THEOLOGICAL ASPECT 



CHAPTER XI 

INDIVIDUALISM AND LEGALISM 

The inquiry how to reconcile the strictly per- 
sonal, individual life-elements with the claims 
to authority of those universal elements incor- 
porated in tradition, in social institutions, in 
written and unwritten law, is in order in 
an age of individual assertions and claims, 
of disruption of systems, of cries of "no dog- 
mas," of subjectivity, of pragmatism, of "Um- 
wertung aller Werte," of the disintegration 
of all things which claim binding authority save 
that of the ego; in an age which, disregarding 
the old New England consideration of all things 
"with reference to eternity," has come to sug- 
gest, at least professedly, all things to the final 
judgment of the self-important ego; in an age 
of individual pretensions which clamor loudly 
against the impotent, wornout, false, mystical, 
hundredfold-cursed superstitions of former days 
that cumber the ground over which progress is 
to march on to higher and better things. In 
such an age it must be worth our while to re- 
flect on the situation, to find out whether indi- 
vidual sovereignty, personal integrity, cannot be 

107 



108 AUTHORITY 

maintained together with the authority of incor- 
porate law. 

This would bring, if not a solution, at least a 
reconciliation in the sense of Montesquieu's 
definition of liberty as "the freedom to do what 
the law permits ,, (Esprit des Lois, Bk. II. ch. 
3). This view is indicated also in the title of 
Sterrett's recent book "The Freedom of Au- 
thority," which attempts reconciliation rather 
than solution. Lavaleye inclines to the side of 
authority when he thus defines liberty : 

"La liberte est le pouvoir de faire tout de qui 
n'est pas contraire au droit, en pratique tant ce 
qui n'est pas contraire aux lois." (Le Gouvern- 
ement dans la democratic, p. 131.) 

On either side, strong claims are made; in be- 
half of legal authority as well as for individual 
rights, though the temper and tenor of our age 
favor the individualistic interpretation of life. 

In a valuable article of the Yale Review of 
February, 1907, by Professor Garner, of Illi- 
nois University, it is stated that the legislative 
guarantee for individual liberty is a compara- 
tively late appearance. Along with attention to 
the individual goes, however, "the tendency 
since the middle of the nineteenth century, 
among the states of the civilized world, to push 
the lines of government farther into the field 
which the individual under the former con- 



INDIVIDUALISM 109 

ditions would have a right to claim as he- 
longing to liberty." This theme is ably- 
treated in a recent inaugural address by Pro- 
fessor H. Krabbe, of Leyden University; "De 
idee der persoonlykheid in de staatsleer." 

Especially is individualism strong in our Re- 
public, founded under the spirit of revolutionary 
ideas, through sudden break of historic relations 
practically without tradition, with much of that 
"assertive democracy" which will recognize no 
superiors, where the citizen is possessed of a 
spirit. 

"That bids him flout the law he makes, 
That bids him make the law he flouts." 

Morality and religion are of all things asserted 
to be primarily personal, individual concerns, 
"Privatsache." And yet, it is exactly in this 
sphere that legalism is most often complained of 
as enlisted in the suppression of the individual 
life by the majority-rule. Legalism, with its 
outward dictates, has at all times encroached 
upon the domain of ethical and religious life, 
though — as Maurice remarks — the conscience 
is intimately bound up with the "I." If codi- 
fied standards become rules for individual life, 
appearances come to play a large part in life. 
Legalism has a bad flavor, especially because 
of those consistent, law-abiding moralists and re- 
ligionists, the pharisees. 



110 AUTHORITY 

The remarkable development of this legalistic 
religion is finely portrayed in Schurer's 
"Geschichte des Judischen Volkes in Zeitalter 
Jesu Christi." (See chapter which treats, "Life 
under the Law.") 

On the other hand, the proclamation of the 
utter independence of the individual, in his free- 
dom from all restraint, is meeting with opposi- 
tion. Nietzsche, the gifted disclaimer of all 
bonds and laws, has certainly given a shocking 
picture in the unlimited, individual pretension 
of his "Herrenmoral." 

( See Jenseits von Gut und Bose. Nietzsche's 
Werke. Band VII.) 

The movement for a return to nature and the 
individualism of the "Sturm und Drang" period 
ran its course without much approval. Rous- 
seau's prize essay on the question: "Have the Sci- 
ences Contributed to Purify or to Corrupt the 
Morality of Mankind?" aimed to establish the lat- 
ter point with more passion and eloquence than 
calm reasoning. After the appearance of many 
treatises on the limitation of the authority of the 
law and of the state, have come discussions as to 
the "limits of individual liberty." 

Montague's "Limits of Individual Liberty," 
Lacy's "Liberty and Law," and Ritchie's "Princi- 
ples of State Interference" are fruitful discus- 
sions in this field. J. S. Mill, in his famous 



INDIVIDUALISM 111 

treatise, feels that individual liberty must be 
limited to actions of a "self-regarding class," 
however difficult they are to define. 

Schiller, in a distich on the Werther-like 
sceptic of passion, who aims at the realization of 
unlimited autonomy of the inborn "I," without 
any outward restraints whatever, characterized 
fitly its prototype: "For every character has the 
right of existence; only inconsistency is not al- 
lowed." "Denn Recht hat jeder Character, es 
giebt kein Unrecht als der Widerspruch." 

Rousseau, declaring the individual a sovereign 
law unto himself, does not allow any supposed 
submission of personal interest to the general 
welfare of mankind. His motto is: "The indi- 
vidual above society." The regulations of so- 
ciety are to be burst asunder, and an abrupt re- 
turn to nature is proclaimed as the cure for all 
evils. Such a naive conception of individualism 
makes him ignore the historic development of 
society and raise the cry to repeal the "social 
contract." This anarchistic self-rule, however, 
has likewise been turned to ridicule and held up 
for opprobrium. "Anarchy is the permanent 
liberty of change, it is the elevation of change 
into law as need or caprice will have it," is the 
definition given in an anarchistic periodical. 
Or, as someone has said, "Anarchism is the acute 
outbreak of individualism." 



112 AUTHORITY 

In learning to understand both view-points, 
the one desiring to regulate the life of the indi- 
vidual by an expressed, outward authority or 
law, the other claiming for the individual au- 
tonomy on the ground] of individual sovereignty, 
we find a common ground on which to meet the 
problems involved in the conflict. For where 
conflicts rage, problems are involved. Instead 
of arguing, therefore, one case at the cost of the 
other, we shall attempt a solution of the difficulty 
by a close interpretation of each view, endeavor- 
ing to find a universal element in the individual 
and an individual element in the universal. If 
legalism be the expression in society of a multi- 
ple individual experience, made regulative 
for the individual, we shall need to inquire into 
the organic relation between the two elements, 
viz., the personal equation and the larger experi- 
ence of racial wisdom, which assumes the right of 
regulative law over the single life in its moral 
and religious functions. In the analysis of this 
question, light may be thrown on the nature of 
legalism. Legalism functions instrumentally in 
the moral life of man. Accumulated, congealed 
morality, objectified deposits from most vari- 
egated single sources, it is the historic object- 
lesson by which man learns to discern the Au- 
thority of all authority. 



CHAPTER XII 

SABATIER'S VIEW OF AUTHORITY 

In the recognition of the forms of authority 
the exercise of faith is involved. However 
reasonable, however natural, however inevitable, 
therefore, the recognition of the forms of au- 
thority may be, reason can never render an ex- 
haustive account of life's "grammar of assent." 
Sabatier in his able discussion, "Religions of 
Authority," assumes that this can be done. But 
he can do this only because his final authority is 
humanity, the last sanction of morality and re- 
ligion being found in humanity, the source from 
which it springs, and its final aim. This view 
is characteristic of France. It is Comte's cult 
of humanity revived in a disguised form. And 
this is the fatal fault under which this valuable 
treatise labors. For Sabatier is right in not 
recognizing on such a presupposition any final 
or absolute authority. There is no absolute and 
final authority when we do not touch somehow 
in its forms the Absolute from which all au- 
thority is derived. When the ontological impli- 
cations of the moral and religious life are dis- 
carded, the rejection of the metaphysical aspect 

113 



114 AUTHORITY 

of religion necessarily follows. This position 
undermines religion by disowning the real, ob- 
jective authority lying back of all faith. Saba- 
tier therefore always remains in the sphere of hu- 
man or derived authority. He expresses him- 
self in his Introduction as follows : 

"Authority is a necessary function of the species, and 
for very self-preservation it watches over that offspring 
in whom its life is prolonged. . . . Social au- 
thority and individual autonomy are not more hostile, 
and can no more legitimately be opposed to one another, 
than the final destiny of man and of humanity. And 
yet authority is never other than a power of fact. 
This is to say that it cannot be the philosophic explana- 
tion nor the ultimate reason of anything. 
Whether willingly or unwillingly, authority must own 
the control of reason. . . . An established au- 
thority, however great its antiquity or its power, never 
carries its justification in itself." 

This is exactly where Sabatier's and all ration- 
alistic explanations of faith are at fault. They 
rest on a false psychology of faith. Authority 
is power of fact, and never owns the control of 
reason. Though reason functions in the giving 
of assent, authority carries its own justification 
for the person who recognizes it. 

Indeed no authority is legitimate which relates 
to our minds so as to stultify or bar the exercise 



SABATIER ON AUTHORITY 115 

of reason. Though reason does not create truth, 
it always weighs, assimilates and applies the data 
which experience places before its consideration. 
Butler well said in his "Analogy" : "Reason is the 
only faculty we have wherewith to judge con- 
cerning anything, even revelation itself." 
When Reville says that in accepting authority 
we do so on grounds of reason, so that it is the 
adhesion of our mind that gives authority its 
weight, he identifies the mind's assent to author- 
ity's claim to be valid with the establishing of 
that authority. As Dr. Francis J. Hall observes 
in "Authority, Ecclesiastical and Biblical" : "It is 
because authority is valid prior to our reasoning 
that it is discovered to be credible by reason ; and 
it is this prior validity that reason discovers, thus 
establishing the rationality of our dependence 
upon authority. Authority presents truth to 
the mind, and does so none the less really whether 
it is rightly understood or not" ; or even, we may 
add, rejected. The attitude towards authority 
is not to believe blindly, or at command as is 
sometimes mistakenly and incongruously argued, 
but rather to make an intelligent use of the most 
trustworthy means available for extending the 
range of our knowledge. In this function veri- 
fication has a larger meaning than the cure of 
doubt. Rather does it enrich the truths already 
accepted. For, as Sir William Hamilton says: 



116 AUTHORITY 

"The original data of reason do not rest upon 
reason, but are necessarily accepted by reason on 
the authority of what is beyond itself. These 
data are, therefore, in rigid propriety, beliefs or 
trusts." It is an unfortunate circumstance that 
against the authority of historic Christianity 
always is asserted that it is at variance with 
reason. Christian dogmatism is an emphasis on 
truth, and such a mental attitude in regard to 
truth should never be regarded as an enemy to 
intellectual freedom. Chesterton, the master of 
paradox, expresses this well in the concluding re- 
marks on "Importance of Orthodoxy" : "The vice 
of the modern notion of mental progress is that 
it is always something concerned with the break- 
ing of bonds, the effacing of boundaries, the cast- 
ing away of dogmas. But if there be such a 
thing as mental growth, it must mean the growth 
into more and more definite convictions, into 
more and more dogmas. The human brain is a 
machine for coming to conclusions; if it cannot 
come to conclusions it is rusty. When we hear 
of a man too clever to believe, we are hearing of 
something having almost the character of a con- 
tradiction in terms. It is like hearing of a nail 
that was too good to hold down a carpet; or a 
bolt that was too strong to keep a door shut. 
. . . If then, I repeat, there is to be mental 
advance, it must be mental advance in the con- 



SABATIER ON AUTHORITY 117 

struction of a definite philosophy of life. And 
that philosophy of life must be right and the 
other philosophies wrong." (P. 283 ff. 
"Heretics," Chapter xx.) Moberly rightly ob- 
serves in "Lux Mundi," pp. 222 and 223: "There 
is no proper antithesis between believing in 
deference to authority, and believing in defer- 
ence to reason, unless it be understood that the 
authority believed in was accepted at first as au- 
thority without reason, or maintained in spite of 
the subsequent refusal of reason to give con- 
firmatory witness to its assertions." Neither 
should it be represented that grace subverts our 
reason or replaces it, rather is the gift of grace, 
an endowment of our reason, a supernatural as- 
sistance which clarifies reason without altering or 
subverting its laws. In conversion with the 
affected will and purified emotions comes also 
as the work of grace the reason enriched from its 
creative source, to assimilate it to its perfect 
archetype. Another circumstance which has 
given cause to much confusion in regard to au- 
thority is referred to by Dr. Hall in his work on 
Authority, where he says: "Absolute trust- 
worthiness of an authority is one thing, the de- 
gree of subjective certainty which can be gained 
in relation to its claim and teaching is another. 
We may not confuse infallible authority with in- 
fallible guidance, for the success of guidance 



118 AUTHORITY 

depends on subjective conditions in individual 
and fallible men. The certainty of faith may be 
so full as to exclude doubt ; but in human beings 
both certainty and doubt are subjective qualities 
of fallible understanding." Significant in this 
regard is the conclusion of the Vth article of the 
Westminster Confession of Faith: "Notwith- 
standing, our full persuasion and assurance of 
the infallible truth, and divine authority thereof, 
is from the inward work of the Holy Spirit, 
bearing witness by and with the word in our 
hearts." 

Now, as Sabatier goes on to say: 

"Being essentially progressive, and far removed 
from the state of perfection, neither authority nor au- 
tonomy may be posited as absolute. . . . Au- 
thority, in its true conception, is and can be no other 
than relative. . . . This theory of the national 
genesis and social function of authority will easily be 
granted for the ordinary course of human things in 
general. . . . But when the question is of religion, 
men stop and protest." 

Sabatier fails to understand this protest, be- 
cause all objects of faith must needs become 
for him merely mediating forms, designed as 
method. Intrinsic, real authority does not ob- 
tain in this sublunary world. He will not abide 
in the absolute authority which faith proclaims. 
Truly, the question is not whether! the pope is in- 



SABATIER ON AUTHORITY 119 

fallible, but whether he must be infallible. But 
the latter proposition does not get a hearing from 
Sabatier. Behind and beyond all sovereignty of 
fact, rises for him a sovereignty of right ; and on 
the strength of this he protests against the exer- 
cise of faith, disallowing authority to any and all 
forms of authority. Yet, strangely inconsistent, 
this, his last appeal and final authority to deny 
any and all its forms, is proclaimed relative. He 
does not discern in the manifestations of truth, 
the Truth itself. For Sabatier, the immanent 
does not involve the transcendent. Metaphysics 
is professedly disowned. He fails to realize the 
import of a passage like Hebrews xi. 3. 
"Through faith we understand that the worlds 
were framed by the word of God, so that things 
which are seen were not made of things which do 
appear"; or of Romans i. 20. "For the invisi- 
ble things of him from the creation of the world 
are clearly seen, being understood by the things 
that are made, even his eternal power and God- 
head." On Scripture authority, therefore, it 
would appear that though truth is neither of 
man, nor by man, it is yet for man, here and 
everywhere, and at all times. This argument, of 
course, applies only to those who admit the au- 
thority of the Bible. Yet, let me quote in this 
connection the admirable words of Professor An- 
drew Seth: 



120 AUTHORITY 

"Rightly agnostic though we are regarding the na- 
ture of the Absolute as such, no shadow of doubt need 
fall on the truth of our experience as a true revelation 
of the Absolute for us. Hegel was right in seeking 
the Absolute with inexperience and finding it, too ; for 
certainly we can neither seek it nor find it anywhere 
else. The truth is hardly likely to be the final truth; 
it may be taken up and superseded in a wider and 
fuller truth. And in this way we might pass, in suc- 
cessive cycles of finite existence, from sphere to sphere 
of experience, from orb to orb of truth; and even the 
highest would still remain a finite truth, and fall in- 
finitely short of the truth of God. But such a doctrine 
of relativity in no way invalidates the truth of revela- 
tion at any given stage. The fact that the truth I 
reach is the truth for me, does not make it on that 
account less true. It is true, so far as it goes, and if 
my experience can carry me no further, I am justified 
in treating it as ultimate until it is superseded. Should 
it ever be superseded, I shall then see both how it is 
modified by being comprehended in a higher truth, and 
also how it, and no other statement of the truth, could 
have been true at my former standpoint. But before 
that higher standpoint is reached, to seek to discredit 
our present insight by the general reflection that its 
truth is partial and requires correction, is a perfectly 
empty truth, which in its bearing upon human life, must 
also certainly have the effect of an untruth." 

In the same essay Professor Seth emphatically 
declares : 



SABATIER ON AUTHORITY 121 

"God is revealed to us alike in the face of nature and 
in our own self-conscious life, — in the common sense 
which binds mankind together and in the ideals which 
light us on our upward path. God is not far from 
any one of us. Within us and around us, here or no- 
where, God is to be found." 

This, indeed, deserves special emphasis. On 
the one hand, knowledge is discounted and ren- 
dered unreliable, because it is treated as relative, 
inadequate in scope and in nature, whilst even 
truth itself is considered a fluctuating total of 
which subjective experiences render inadequate 
account inasmuch as they play a formative part 
in it. The extreme tendency in this direction 
leaves us in subjectivism. On the other hand, 
the Absolute is lifted out of the reach of the 
finite, following out Kant's view that thoughts 
stand between us and things, so that we are shut 
off from the knowledge of "things in them- 
selves." The "negative theologies" represent 
this line of thought, so ably expounded in Brad- 
ley's work "Appearance and Reality." The 
Truth, the Absolute, the Infinite, Reality, is con- 
ceived of as necessarily unrelated and undiffer- 
entiated substance. It is the pure Being of the 
Eleatic school. It is strongly insisted upon by 
Dean Mansel in his Bampton lectures and gave 
rise to the well-known controversy with Maurice. 
But it amounts practically to the same thing, 



122 AUTHORITY 

whether the Absolute be elevated into such pure 
Being that it is essentially unrelated and undif- 
ferentiated, or whether it is held to have no in- 
dependent objective existence. In either case, 
or even in Hegelian panlogism or Spinozan ma- 
terialism, the Absolute is so pure an abstraction 
that truth becomes a fiction. It is therefore a 
pointed wit which called Bradley's book: "The 
disappearance of Reality." Maurice is right 
when he says of this view in "Sequel to What is 
Revelation" (p. 10) : 

"No real knowledge of the Eternal is possible; our 
conceptions are bounded by the finite and the visible. 
My answer is : If that is the reason, no knowledge of 
the temporal is possible. Slavery to our conceptions, as 
the teacher of experimental science has shown us, is 
the hindrance to any real, solid acquaintance with the 
mysteries of Nature. When we try to bind her with the 
forms of our intellect, she will give us no faithful an- 
swers ; she will only return an echo to our voices. Here 
is another proof of the analogy between the things 
sensible and spiritual. The same enemy blocks the en- 
trance into both regions. The determination to meas- 
ure all things by ourselves, to bring everything under 
the conditions of our intellect, makes us exiles from the 
Kingdom of Heaven and the Kingdom of earth." 

Hegel's system may teach both these errors. 
For, inasmuch as it equates the Absolute with 



SABATIER ON AUTHORITY 123 

human experience, it leaves no room for the in- 
dependence, the transcendent objectivity of the 
Absolute, — unless it be at the expense of indi- 
vidual personality, in which case that which 
figures as such, is only the Absolute as subject 
of thought. Yet, it teaches also that we can 
only determine the Absolute by predicates 
drawn from experience, attributes which experi- 
ence indeed furnishes in its ever-increasing rich 
and various forms. These characteristics and 
determinations are legitimately "thrown out to 
a vast Reality" as Matthew Arnold terms it; — 
legitimately thrown out, because found and 
recognized in the forms of life as appearing in 
the things that are seen. 



CHAPTER XIII 

HEGEL'S DOCTRINE OF THE STATE 
AND AUTHORITY 

Hegel assumed the knowing of the coming 
into existence of this worldorder and plan, but 
rendered the task consequent upon his bold as- 
sumption easy by the identifying thought and 
matter, — which may mean metaphysical idealism 
or materialistic pantheism, but in either case 
strict monism. A world is treated in each in- 
stance as a negligible quantity. 

Hegel's system of the objective mind as the 
receptacle of the multifarious individual contri- 
butions, to the extent that these are intrinsic 
parts of the social structure, leads necessarily to 
the consideration of man as a social unit. We 
are not only fed on the breasts of society, but are 
part and parcel with it in a panlogistic system. 
Over against Kant's categorical imperative, He- 
gel's demand, keeping in close touch with the 
milieu in the midst of which the individual lives, 
enjoins: "Observe your station and its duties!" 
But Hegel solves the possible discrepancy be- 
tween the subjective and objective mind, indi- 
vidual and normative law, by a slighting of the 

124 



HEGEL ON AUTHORITY 125 

first, and by an unwarranted assumption in be- 
half of the latter. In his "Phenomenology of 
the Spirit" he reduces the many to the one on 
the assumption of the identity of thought and 
being, which makes the laws of thought the law 
of things. The well-known watchword is: 
"Whatever is real is rational and whatever is 
rational is real." He says in his "Logic": "Phi- 
losophy of the Absolute is a representation of 
God as He was in his eternal essence before the 
creation of the world or of a finite spirit; as all 
things were made by Him, and He is before all 
things and by Him all things consist." The 
procedure of tracing out the logical processes of 
his "Immanent Dialectic" has been characterized 
as a generalizing away of God's personality and 
of human personality in the Absolute Idea, be- 
cause thought is stripped of individuality and 
made abstract and universal. Schopenhauer 
said : 

"Hegel's system briefly expressed teaches that 
the world is a crystallized syllogism." The lead- 
ing theme, briefly stated, is: Sein hat Dasein. 
Being has existence (e x- sister e) , stands out in 
determination. We see the process in mind, 
think God's thoughts after Him. All predica- 
tion is trichotomy. The judgment A is B con- 
tradicts A, involving as it does that A is no 
longer A, but is B. A new synthesis conse- 



126 AUTHORITY 

quently is involved. Thus the great march of 
Hegel's Pure Being or Absolute in its self- 
realization is pregnant with all the world's con- 
tent and destiny. Hegel thus naturally em- 
phasized the immanence of God. In this con- 
nection, his exposition of cause and effect is 
worthy of notice, as well as his insistence, — con- 
trary to the attempts of naturalistic theories — 
that a developing series is to be understood in its 
highest term, for development does not mean ad- 
dition. He says in his "Logic," "God is the abso- 
lute Person, as self-conscious, he is not the end 
of an evolution, but all things created find their 
reality in Him." (Wallace's translation, pp. 89- 
91.) Caird is therefore correct when he says 
that "the advance from mere being is a deepen- 
ing of being in itself whereby its inner nature is 
laid bare, rather than an issuing of the more per- 
fect from the less perfect." ("Hegel," p. 218.) 

Hegel should not be charged with explaining 
the generation of God, man, and nature out of 
pure Being which equals non-being. He rather 
catches Pure Being in the world-process on its 
way toward self-realization. Keying the proc- 
ess with that of which it consists, thought, he 
seeks to trace its development. On this account 
the terms "abstract" and "concrete" exchange 
meanings with Hegel. 

This short sketch will suffice to show the bear- 



HEGEL ON AUTHORITY 127 

ing of Hegel's main position on the subject of 
authority. Professor Dyde of Queen's College, 
who has given us an excellent translation of He- 
gel's "Rechtslehre," remarks: 

"Since Hegel treats in the 'Philosophy of Right' of 
an essential stage in the evolution of spirit, whose whole 
nature is unfolded scene by scene in the 'Encyclopedia,' 
it is not accurate to speak of Hegel's ethical principles 
as based upon his logic. The more concrete categories 
of the 'Philosophy of Right' are related each to the 
next in the same way as are the more abstract cate- 
gories treated in the Logic. But the relation of the 
ethics to the logic is not that of superstructure to 
foundation or of application to principle, but of the 
more concrete to the less concrete stage of evolution. 
One single life runs through the whole organism of the 
work." 

Dr. Gans, one of the editors of the Complete 
Edition of Hegel's books, also remarks that He- 
gel's "Philosophy of Right and Doctrine of the 
State" is as much as any other an essential part of 
his philosophy. 

The transcendent part of the Absolute is not 
very clear in Hegel's system. It may serve to 
meet Trendelenburg's pointed criticism that He- 
gel bridges unwarrantably the chasm between 
"pure being" and "becoming." To endow pure, 
undifferentiated being with the first attribute or 



128 AUTHORITY 

quality in order to start it on its process of self- 
realization, requires a cause, which is not recog- 
nized in the system. We can give no other 
meaning to Sterret's statement in his able work, 
"Studies in Hegel's Philosophy of Religion," 
when he says: — "In Hegel's whole Logic, 
which contains his system or method in pure sci- 
entific form as extending to all his philosophical 
views, God seems to me to be immanent in the 
actuality and order of the world, and transcen- 
dent as its efficient cause." Of the transcendent 
part in Hegel's Absolute, we are not convinced 
by seeing "pure Being" narrowed down to the 
ceaselessly evolving series of events on this 
planet, where everything appears only as a "mo- 
ment in the process." The dogmas of the 
Church appear of course also as "moments in the 
process," and become mere symbols of reality. 
But for this "abbreviated knowledge of faith" 
the believer insists on corresponding reality. 
We cannot help feeling that Hegel at the end of 
his three volumes on "Philosophy of Religion" 
has but increasingly felt this disruption between 
historic Christianity and the symbols of faith of 
his philosophic speculation. He practically de- 
spairs of a possible solution when he says that 
it is not the immediate affair and concern of phi- 
losophy, although he always made much of the 
theological bearings of his philosophy. Dr. 



HEGEL ON AUTHORITY 129 

Marheineke who edited Hegel's "Philosophy of 
Religion" styles it "the highest bloom of Hegel's 
philosophy." 

Inasmuch as with Hegel, individual, family, 
and community have their truth and ground in 
the state, no claims of the individual against the 
state are admissible. Fries and Krause, who 
emphasized individualism, objected that Hegel 
made "the objective mind" the absolute criterion 
and everything subservient to it. The pivotal 
maxim, "Whatever is real is rational, and what- 
ever is rational is real," was partially construed, 
and only the first part seized upon in argument. 
Menzel therefore does Hegel here, as in many 
other respects, scant justice when he remarks: — 
"The notorious proposition of Hegel, 'All that 
is real is rational,' is made use of to show that the 
present condition of things is absolutely the most 
rational, and that it is not merely revolutionary, 
but eminently stupid, foolish, and unphilosophi- 
cal to take exceptions to it." When in Hegel's 
system individual claims of selfhood are shat- 
tered before the sovereignty of the state and its 
institutions, and the notion of the "divine right 
of kings" stalks around again, it should be borne 
in mind in fairness to Hegel that for him the 
sovereignty of the state is actualized in the liv- 
ing monarch and reconciled with the privilege of 
the individual citizen who obeys only the laws of 



130 AUTHORITY 

which he perceives and approves the ground. In 
Hegel's system, the individual citizen is not sup- 
posed to be at variance with the state. He says : 

"Epicurus, it is said, believed that the world should 
be given over to each individual's opinions and whims; 
and the ethical fabric should be treated in the same way. 
By this old wives' concoction, which consists in found- 
ing upon the feelings what has been for many centuries 
the labor of reason and understanding, we no longer 
need the guidance of any ruling conception." 

Individualistic schemes, on the other hand, lie 
open to criticism by opposing the individual and 
his interests to the interests of the state. It 
should also be understood that where Hegel in- 
sists on the sovereignty of the law, of the state 
over the individual, it is the Idea which is the 
norm and ideal to which the subject is to be sub- 
ject, and without which he is not a proper sub- 
ject. Unfortunately, however, the Idea remains 
impersonal, in despite of all assertions of neo- 
Hegelians. The individual citizen does not 
move in personal relationship with this absolute 
authority of the state which he is to obey. It 
remains outward restraint, legal power of fact. 
Hegel seems to recognize this fact fully in re- 
taining Kant's distinction between the legal and 
the moral, the impersonal law subjecting per- 
sons, and impersonal law subjectified by persons. 



HEGEL ON AUTHORITY 131 

The sphere of right demanding conformity to 
law, though without regard to the individual per- 
son, subjects him to ethical powers, and is there- 
fore not a limitation of freedom but rather its 
reality, as it is only the arbitrary will which is 
limited. That such a profound view of the au- 
thority of the state as the goal of all existence 
should demand obedient recognition of all, need 
not cause surprise. This view is removed by a 
whole diameter from the popular notion of a 
"government of the people, by the people, and 
for the people," though the two conceptions ap- 
proach each other when rightly interpreted, ex- 
cept that Hegel's governmental view with its 
sovereignty of state and ruler inclines to a par- 
ental attitude, whilst democracy as voiced by 
Lincoln tends to stimulate initiative. Both men 
are typical representatives of their views. 

It is hardly duly appreciated that Hegel's 
views strongly counteracted the tendency of law- 
lessness of the period of "Sturm und Drang" of 
which "Wilhelm Meister" is the classic expres- 
sion. They exercised a wholesome influence on 
that lawless individualism of emotional roman- 
ticism in which the sentimental gush of Rous- 
seau was combined with the bold claims of Fichte 
for individual assertion against established law 
and order. Hegel lent dignity to the law by 
conceiving so profoundly of the sovereignty of 



132 AUTHORITY 

the state as to vest it with the authority of the 
Absolute Idea. 

Thus the law is taken out of the hands of the 
individuals or political group (the machine) and 
lifted over and above all, regulating all alike so 
that the chief executive of the nation is as much 
under the law he wields as the meanest citizen. 
To break this law is treason indeed! It is like 
lifting a puny, wanton hand against the very 
framework of God Himself. 

As all governments are historic, ethnic, tradi- 
tional flowerings of the idea of the specific na- 
tion, it is wholly beside the mark when critics 
assert that Hegel would force a rigid, hide- 
bound Prussian bureaucracy upon a nation like 
ours, — plastic, young, and new — meeting occa- 
sions as they come, and rising equal to deal with 
them. Of course we do not always deal with new 
situations in the best way, but we are making 
more valuable political experiments than are 
possible under the Hegelian conception of law 
which tends to bind individual initiative under 
the yoke of bureaucratic routine. Still we must 
remember that Hegel thinks that every un- 
sophisticated consciousness stands upon the con- 
viction that the rational is real, and conversely. 
From this circumstance proceeds the view that 
the spiritual universe is the natural. To quote 
Hegel : 



HEGEL ON AUTHORITY 133 

"When reflection, feeling, or whatever other form the 
subjective consciousness may assume, regards the pres- 
ent as vanity, and thinks itself to be beyond it and 
wiser, it finds itself in emptiness, and, as it has actuality 
only in the present, it is vanity throughout. Against 
the doctrine that the idea is a mere idea, figment or 
opinion, philosophy preserves the more profound view 
that nothing is real except the idea. Hence arises the 
effort to recognize in the temporal and transient the 
substance, which is immanent, and the eternal, which 
is present. The rational is synonymous with the idea, 
because in realizing itself it passes into eternal exist- 
ence. It thus appears in an endless wealth of forms, 
figures, and phenomena. It wraps its kernel round 
with a robe of many colors, in which consciousness finds 
itself at home. Through this varied husk, the con- 
ception first of all penetrates in order to touch the 
pulse, and then feel it throbbing in its external mani- 
festations." 

The critics who represent Hegel as the cham- 
pion of the baldest conservatism in defense of all 
actual conditions whatever they be, leave out of 
account his conception that all rationality of the 
real has only a relative and partial value. Its 
value — though never lost — must be tran- 
scended, overcome, and make room for another 
phase. The necessity of the "moments of the 
process" in the stage of development of pure 
thought constitutes lasting truth and its justify- 



134 AUTHORITY 

ing value. There is a certain ambiguity in He- 
gel's doctrine according as one approaches the 
phases of development. If one lays hold of the 
viewpoint that all our institutions, all our inheri- 
tance of the past, all the tradition of former days 
upon which we now stand and to which we are 
vitally related, must go and make place for the 
better things to come — l^e meilleur est Vennemi 
du bien — then Hegel may be regarded as the 
proclaimer of an evolution which is ever urging 
the progress of the principles that throb in na- 
tional life and its institutions. And truly in 
Hegel's system there is nothing to offset this, 
inasmuch as there is no permanent element in 
the change. Josiah Royce might well exclaim 
"The conception of the eternity of the forms of 
things is historically considered by far the most 
significant opponent that the philosophic doctrine 
of evolution has had or ever can have," especially 
when the changing time-elements are interpreted 
in materialistic fashion. This interpretation has 
been put upon his doctrine by the left-wing He- 
gelians, and the fact that they were the most pro- 
gressive in politics and religion is sufficient refu- 
tation of the charge that Hegel advocated the 
acme of conservatism. He was conservative, but 
his system does not necessarily involve it. He- 
gel himself emphasized the conservative aspect 
of his system, but the writings of Feuerbach, 



HEGEL ON AUTHORITY 135 

Bruno, Baur, Strauss, and Karl Marx show that 
the most radical progress could be read into his 
system. As Professor Bowen has well said: — 
"The baldest infidelity and red-republicanism 
went under the name and garb of Hegelian phi- 
losophy." Although this point has been a much 
controverted question in the Hegelian schools 
and among their critics, it is plain that those are 
wrong who place the Hegelian maxim, " What- 
ever is real is rational," alongside of Pope's ver- 
sion, "Whatever is is right," of the Leibnitzian 
optimism, which proclaims this the best of the 
possible worlds. Pope's "Essay on Man" is no 
more admissible in Hegel's system than is the 
scathing and vulgar satire of Voltaire's "Can- 
dide," which it called forth. 



CHAPTER XIV 
AUTHORITY AND FACT 

We should accept the fact that objective ex- 
istence is known in our 1 experience, not only from 
epistemological considerations, but also from the 
admission of the necessary function of authority, 
unreservedly made by those who yet disclaim the 
meaning of fact. For is not objective authority 
the mediating agency for the individual, because 
it constitutes direct, first-hand witness to inde- 
pendent facts, which we are not able to verify 
ourselves? The whole function of authority 
falls to the ground, unless it implies this witness 
to objective, independent fact. Of course, this 
functional authority in its most varied forms, to 
which conscience and reason make their appeal 
in justification of belief, relates to the objective 
source of authority, without which these indi- 
vidual witnesses would not constitute authority. 

In this connection we may call attention to 
the essentially unscientific procedure of the 
present Bible-critics in employing the narratives 
of the original, direct witnesses to Christ, in or- 
der to * reconstruct" a Christ and a Gospel as 
they conceive of them, but independent of the 

136 



AUTHORITY AND FACT 137 

authority of the Bible-stories. One can readily 
understand the resulting diversity in the recon- 
struction and appreciate Kalthoff's remark that 
every school in modern times has its University- 
Christ. Similarly the modern theorists of this 
school, in spite of their cry "Back to Christ" re- 
main from the nature of the case "standing stiff 
in the stocks." They go neither back nor for- 
ward to Christ, but contemplate themselves in 
Christ-images projected rather than found in 
faith. 

Goethe's sarcasm comes to them with full 
force : 

"Wie einer ist, so ist sein Gott ; 
Darum ward Gott so oft zu Spott." 

It is again Luther's declaration: "Machet ihm 
jedermann Zum Gott, darzu ihm sein Herz 
trug." 

At the bottom of this procedure lurks Feuer- 
bach's bald assertion, contrasted with the affirma- 
tion, of Christian faith: "God did not create man 
in His image, but man created God (or Gods) 
in his image." This theory, especially regard- 
ing Christianity, is historically false, because it 
reverses the true causal relation. 

Professor G. T. Ladd takes up this view in 
his "Philosophy of Religion" in a somewhat con- 



138 AUTHORITY 

cessive mood. Accepting the statement that 
"man made God in his own image," he finds the 
other statement that "God first made man in His 
image" to be only a religious interpretation of 
the first (Vol. I. Ch. xiv). "God himself," he 
says in another place (p. 146), "as at first the 
Ideal of power and majesty and afterwards of 
justice, truth, and spiritual perfection, is the 
construct of the quenchless desire and growing 
aptitude for the realization of the Ideal." I am 
aware that Professor Ladd's ontological con- 
sciousness strenuously safeguards at least the 
reality of the truth that appears in historic re- 
ligions, but his explanation seems rather arbi- 
trary. 

Professor Schmiedel furnishes another typi- 
cal illustration of this view in his article on the 
"Resurrection" in the "Encyclopedia Biblica." 
After arguing with much elaborateness and abil- 
ity in favor of the vision theory he says: "The 
disciples believed they saw Jesus, because they 
were already persuaded He was alive." 

Examples might be multiplied in which the 
decision whether Christ made Christianity or 
Christianity made Christ has been made from 
theory, rather than in accordance with the re- 
sults of a strictly historical method of investiga- 
tion. But in the scientific study of history, as 
in strict legal procedure, original witnesses are 



AUTHORITY AND FACT 139 

not easily displaced by the most ingenious 
theory. The question is not what might have 
been the case, but what are the facts. Truth is 
our first concern, — truth in the Old-English 
meaning of the word "treow" which is "faithful- 
ness," or "appeal to facts" (cf. the German 
Treue, Dutch trouw) . We must be faithful to 
facts. Theories and explanations are subservi- 
ent and secondary to fact. They are mere at- 
tempts to explain them. But facts require 
recognition, whether we are able to explain them 
or not. The irreversible facts are themselves ex- 
planations as passive witnesses in service of 
truth. Magna est Veritas et praevalebit. 

The nature and importance of original au- 
thorities is maintained by all historians. Pro- 
fessor E. A. Freeman, in his "Methods of His- 
torical Study" (Lectures IV and V), says: 

"The kernel of all sound teaching in historical mat- 
ters is the doctrine that no historical study is of any 
value which does not take in a knowledge of original 
authorities. Let no one mistake this saying, as if I 
were laying down a rule that no knowledge of any his- 
torical matter can be of any value which does not come 
straight from an original authority. 

"The fact is that Livy, Plutarch, and a crowd of 
others, though they are not original authorities in 
themselves, are original authorities to us. That is to 
say, we can for the most part get no further than what 



140 AUTHORITY 

they tell us. We know that they copied earlier writers ; 
we often know what earlier writers they copied. But 
those earlier writers are for the most part lost; to us 
Livy and Plutarch are their representatives. For a 
large part of their story we have no appeal from them 
except either to internal evidence or to any fragmentary 
authorities of other kinds that may be left to us. 
There is no counter-narrative. 

"If, then, we are to define original authorities, we 
might perhaps define them as those writers from whom 
we have no appeal, except to other writers of the same 
class. 

"We must remember that even the best contemporary 
writer is commonly a primary authority for a part only 
of his subject. Though living at the time of which 
he writes, though often an actor in the scenes of which 
he writes, still he cannot always write from personal 
knowledge ; he cannot have seen everything with his own 
eyes ; he must constantly write only what he has been 
told by others ; only he is able to judge of what is told 
him by others in a way that a later writer cannot do. 
And besides his narrative, there is often other contem- 
porary evidence which for some purposes may be of 
higher authority than his narrative. The text of a 
proclamation or a treaty is, within its own range, of 
higher authority than the very best contemporary nar- 
rative. I say within its own range, because the official 
document, while it always proves a great deal, does 
not always prove everything. 

"The later writers are by no means to be cast aside ; 
it is often very important to see how they looked at 



AUTHORITY AND FACT 141 

the events of earlier times. The point to be under- 
stood is that they are not authorities, that they are 
not witnesses, that a statement made by a contemporary 
gains nothing in inherent value because it is copied over 
and over again by a hundred writers who are not con- 
temporaries. Whenever a man at any date has spe- 
cial means of knowledge, he becomes so far an au- 
thority; a local writer or a man who has specially 
studied some particular class of subjects may be in this 
sense an authority, that is the nearest approach to an 
authority that we can get, even for times long before 
his own." 

In literature the same rule applies. Authori- 
ties are the standards by which to regulate, but 
which, after the testing of the times, cannot 
themselves be subjected to other standards in 
their authoritative element. Sainte-Beuve, in 
his "Causeries du Lundi," gives certain defini- 
tions which may be adduced here by way of illus- 
tration : 

"A classic is, according to the ordinary definition, 
an author who is already established in the admiration 
of the people and who figures as authority in his field. 
The word 'classic' appears first in this sense with the 
Romans. With them not all the citizens of the differ- 
ent classes were called 'classic,' but only those of the 
first class who possessed at least a certain fixed income. 

"All those who possessed an income below that were 
designated as 'infra classem,' below the class par ex- 
cellence. Figuratively the word 'classicus' is found 



142 AUTHORITY 

used by Aulus Gellius, and applied to authors ; an au- 
thor of value and distinction, 'classicus assiduusque 
scriptor,' an author who counts, who possesses some- 
thing and is not to be confounded with the mass of 
proletarians. Such an expression, therefore, presup- 
poses an age sufficient to have given opportunity for 
criticism and classification in literature. 

"The idea 'classic' implies something of a regular con- 
sistent character which forms a whole and has tradi- 
tion. It grows, spreads, yet endures. 

"The first Dictionary of the Academy (1694) defined 
a classic author simply as an ancient author very much 
approved, one who is authority in the subject-matter 
with which he deals. The Dictionary of the Academy 
of 1835 presses this definition further and renders it 
more precise and specific. It defines 'classic authors' 
as those who have become models in any languge. In 
the articles which follow recur continually expressions 
such as: models, established rules for composition and 
style, strict rules for art to which one must conform." 



CHAPTER XV 

BIBLE AUTHORITY 

Subjectivism, pragmatism, and pluralism, as 
much as agnosticism, logically rule authority out 
of court. The current attempts to save a kind 
of authority for the Bible by those who refuse 
to admit its objective authority are interesting. 
At the best they simply vest Scripture with their 
own endorsement, holding that the Bible is not the 
Word of God, but that the word of God is in the 
Bible. The authentication of the Word of God, 
however, is left to the individual. Dr. Forsyth, 
in an able article in the Contemporary Review, 
advocates the view that the Bible as such is not 
the word of God, but derives its authority from 
the Word of God, of which it is part. This con- 
ception is not unlike the view of the authority of 
the Bible held by the Roman Catholic Church, 
in which the church is set over the Bible, but the 
Roman view retains at least some objective 
norm. As Cardinal Gibbons says in "The Faith 
of Our Fathers": "The canonicity of the Holy 
Scriptures rests solely on the authority of the 
Catholic Church, which proclaimed them in- 
spired." Dr. Forsyth, on the other hand, de- 

143 



144 AUTHORITY 

rives the authority of the Bible from its function 
in the service of the Gospel. If Dr. Forsyth 
means to leave any intrinsic authority to the 
Bible in its necessary relation to the functioning 
of the gospel among men, then his conception of 
authority is at fault. For authority is not a de- 
rived power, behind which those to whom its 
appeal is made, may go. 

There is no inquiry more momentous, more 
fraught with influences that bear directly 
upon our ethical life than that which seeks to 
place before us in authority a reliable, regulative 
standard for conduct. It can be shown from 
statistics that in all periods of unsettlement and 
of social and economic transition, the ethical life 
is agitated and powerfully affected. Crime in- 
creases proportionately as the unsettled condi- 
tion becomes more complete. The facts observed 
make it evident that, where the restraints of au- 
thority are less felt, they exercise less influence. 
Is this restraining influence upon the will the 
whole content of the concept of authority? Or 
must we necessarily raise questions regarding 
that before which the will bows in submission? 
Evidently this latter question must be raised ; for 
the authority can not be entirely of the indi- 
vidual who bends in homage before the dictates 
of such authority. It is in us, but not of us. 
Indeed, ''liberty of conscience" itself points to a 



BIBLE AUTHORITY 145 

"conscience of liberty." And this would mean 
that we are mated by our susceptibilities with an 
unestrangeable witness throughout all the activi- 
ties of life ; matched by our inner nature with an 
outward standard. Thus it becomes evident that 
there is always implied, when we consider au- 
thority, first of all an objective reference. Of 
course, in its very dictates and efficacy, this au- 
thority is determined and conditioned by the 
ethical nature of him to whom its decrees are 
issued. This disposes at once of the superficial 
remark which is often made on the strength of 
this circumstance f. i. by Professor Perry in 
"The Moral Economy" p. 34. 

"There is a phrase, 'liberty of conscience,' which well 
expresses the modern conception of moral obligation. 
It recognizes that duty in the last analysis is imposed 
upon the individual neither by society nor even by God, 
but by himself; that there is no authority in moral 
matters more ultimate than a man's own rational con- 
viction of what is best." 

Precisely, this circumstance, this binding obli- 
gation is a personal expression of personal re- 
sponsibility to God in the definite social forms 
and specific individual experience. Philosophi- 
cal inquiry seeks to define the objective nature 
of authority. After authority has been estab- 
lished, the man of daily doings has something to 



146 AUTHORITY 

go by, if he can only rely on his given standard. 
This practical necessity accounts for the codi- 
fication of the various and rich contents of the 
religious and ethical life. We thus find always 
codes, rules, dogmas, external authorities. Our 
very sense of authority is their guarantee. 

Where more is at stake in the risks of life, as 
in the religious sphere, the guarantee is propor- 
tionately stronger. In this light we may see the 
importance of a subjective belief in an "in- 
fallible" church, in the Bible as "the perfect rule 
of faith and practice," in Christ as "very God of 
very God and very man of very man" in His re- 
deeming work. 

Within the sphere of faith the creeds are 
established, and the guarantee accepted for the 
personal endorsement of belief, but the skeptical 
inquiry which does not by faith lay hold of these 
codes, dogmas and securities on the market of 
life, clamors loudly for demonstration of their 
right to be authoritative. 

The place assigned to faith in the Bible and 
by Christianity as fundamental and supreme, 
underlying and conditioning all human knowl- 
edge and action is an acknowledged fact. And 
if faith then must function in all the activities of 
life, then the only question is which form it takes, 
for some form it must take. We therefore raise 
the question: Are the objects of faith adequate 



BIBLE AUTHORITY 147 

and justified, when looked at without the eyes of 
faith? The multitudes require demonstration 
from the "faithful" — i. e., those who have the 
faith — if they are to be induced to stake life's 
values on the same principles. We are to verify 
our credal formulations and beliefs before the 
men of the world. We are all fighting our 
battles in this same impartial world. God is no 
respecter of persons. Will the world yield us 
the best by conducting life's campaign along the 
plan of obedience to Christian teachings and be- 
liefs. This is to be made plain to the world. 
Is there justification in suspense of assent to the 
old Christian authority. Not if faith is an essen- 
tial function in life as actually lived. In life we 
have to take chances. We, free moral agents, 
act in God's vast domain at our own peril, 
A valuation of conduct, a posteriori by others, 
does not concern me in the brunt of life's battles, 
face to face with temptations. I must decide 
now, how to steer. The pilot with chart and 
compass must be brought on board of my storm- 
tossed hulk. 

Nor is the proposal that one should wait until 
the facts are all in, resting in the assurance 
that the results will vindicate the reasonableness 
of the faith, any more satisfactory. To wait till 
all the facts are in! Can the plummet of my 
finite intellect fathom the depths of life's ocean? 



148 AUTHORITY 

You bid me to suspend judgment, not to decide 
for the things that have power over me. I must 
be scientific by committing myself to the infin- 
itely vague possibility, as over against the con- 
crete, urgent facts that are upon me. Profes- 
sor James has shown well, in his "Will to Be- 
lieve," that what you demand is a psychological 
impossibility. Suspension of assent is impos- 
sible, whatever academic, would-be scientific ac- 
curacy may decide in its theory. 

In actual life there are no dead issues; life is 
replete with conflicts. Life is a battlefield; I 
must fight. Therefore only living issues have 
a chance of being taken up. They are those 
which approach, and can be carried into, actual 
life. 

If faith is the surrender to an acknowledged 
authority, then it would follow that authority of 
some sort is involved in the conduct of life. The 
pragmatic! attitude towards life, a disguised utili- 
tarianism without approximate guarantee for 
my actions by a computation of results, is 
either, (1) a tremendously vast faith in the ra- 
tionality of the universe, matching as it does, 
my reason, my instincts, my all, in complete har- 
mony with all about me; or (2) it is a flat re- 
fusal to accept authority over, and restraint 
upon, my rebellious nature. 

I believe it is the latter. For, first, conscience 



BIBLE AUTHORITY 149 

does not allow us to say that our natures com- 
port so well with the world's intrinsic arrange- 
ment that our actions upon it yield us its essen- 
tial meaning. We are out of joint with the 
Universe, with God. The feeling of sin is uni- 
versal. Secondly, the real tendency of pragma- 
tism in religion is too clearly manifest to leave 
us in doubt as to the fact of its opposition to any 
and all doctrine. 

We must have a "working faith," and it is 
ipso facto impossible to proceed upon anything 
with a principle to which I can give sanction only 
after having seen how it "does work." 

(3) It must be remembered, however, that 
irrespective of all argumentation or rational 
proofs, whether logically adequate or inadequate, 
the Bible still presses upon all men the old 
alternative of life or death conditioned on imme- 
diate practical surrender to its requirements. As 
Calvin observes in his "Institutes": "Scripture, 
carrying its own evidence along with it, deigns 
not to submit to proofs and arguments, but owes 
the full conviction with which we ought to re- 
ceive it to the testimony of the spirit." Or in 
the words of Athanasius : "The holy and divinely 
inspired Scriptures are sufficient of themselves, 
aurapxei<; for the declaration of truth." 

The Bible everywhere assumes sovereign right 
to authority over man — every man everywhere 



150 AUTHORITY 

and always — to command belief and obedience. 
This is where the skepticism of this age — and of 
all ages — takes issue with it. Some theologian 
has aptly remarked that what our age objects to 
in the realm of religion and morality is au- 
thority, and in the intellectual sphere the miracle. 
Is choice of attitude categorical in this issue? 
Are the contrasts, which Christ constantly puts 
before us in his teachings, not to be avoided? 
Are we to face one way or another; give our al- 
legiance either to good or to evil? 

In view of the issue at stake — the soul's end- 
less destiny — the man who is brought to face it 
is impelled to ask, just what are the Biblical re- 
quirements to which it demands my conformity 
with such sanctions? 

As this question is put, we approach the sub- 
ject of authority as consisting in a set of prop- 
ositions, dogmas, codes, to which our assent is 
required. Such a situation results in the ra- 
tional formulation and statement of what is in- 
volved in this authoritative Biblical claim, if any 
genuine inquirer is to attain to intellectual satis- 
faction. Hence the normative standard of our 
creeds, doctrines, codes, and Bible. Yea! re- 
ligion has been to some extent justly classed by 
the impious mind as a "police force" in the life 
of the average believer. It is external, rather 
than positive and inward; constraint instead of 



BIBLE AUTHORITY 151 

moving principle. It must be observed, how- 
ever, that the very conception of authority im- 
plies this restraint. Its dictates are not at our 
discretion; though in us, they are not of us, but 
refer beyond us. 

We must also remember that the objective as- 
pect, of what is too readily called "and external 
creed," has its corresponding subjective refer- 
ence. The Old Testament, by addressing the 
Israelites in progressive ethical commands, may 
illustrate this. To consider all creeds only from 
the subjective standpoint, as formulations of be- 
lief, is to cut asunder the bond of Christian fel- 
lowship and union, and refuse any objective cri- 
terion. These tendencies run high in mystic and 
emotional types of religion. But while in this 
case piety often guarantees the essential features 
of religious life and thus its convictions, even if 
no insistence is put upon their formulation, it be- 
comes quite another question, when a skeptical 
age and tendency raises the cry, "Religion with- 
out theology." That is irrational and impossi- 
ble. There are over our life objective standards 
to which we must conform. 

But to admit the authority of a Book as "the 
perfect rule of faith and practice" is an admis- 
sion which it is hard for the skeptical mind to 
make, when it does not find itself in these regu- 
lative standards. Here is the rub. For the 



152 AUTHORITY 

solution of the difficulty, we do no better than 
repeat the well-known "Credo ut intelligam"; 
and this is begging the question, so far as there 
is concerned a compelling of assent where it is 
not given. Yet, where the inquiry sincerely 
comes, "If thou canst do anything, have pity on 
us and help us," there is also in order, and does 
also follow, the confession: "Lord, I believe, 
help thou mine unbelief!" 

Dr. Forsyth, in an article entitled "The 
Evangelical Churches and the Higher Criti- 
cism," in the October number of the Contempo- 
rary Review for 1906, discusses the fact of au- 
thority, and does it as one whose strong and 
wholesome evangelical conviction in the authority 
of the Gospel evokes enthusiastic response. But 
it must be remarked, nevertheless, that he does 
not argue the vexed question as to the seat of 
authority, in his helpful confession of faith in 
God's redeeming grace in Christ. It is, indeed, 
true, that faith in the Gospel is the sine qua non 
which illumines the Bible, which makes us read it 
religiously, renders it authoritative for us. But 
unless there first be granted the authority, un- 
less faith be first exercised in regard to Bible, 
creed or Church, we cannot experience that sense 
of authority that awes souls because God reaches 
man. It must remain a reaching out of man 
after God. 






BIBLE AUTHORITY 153 

Dr. Forsyth's view is popularly reported by 
Rev. Monroe Smith in "Christian Faith and 
Doctrine Series"; "The Inspiration and Au- 
thority of Holy Scriptures" to which Principal 
Forsyth wrote the introduction. Rev. Smith 
confuses infallible guidance for the individual 
soul (which would do away with freedom) with 
the infallibility of the inspired record, and de- 
nies the latter on an argument against the 
former. 

It is! maintained by the advocates of the Bible, 
that its Authority can be vindicated at the bar 
of reason, not that it can be established. 

The historical fact at the foundation is: that 
God gave the Bible through His prophets and 
apostles as the Christian Code. The Christian 
contention is : that the grounds for believing that 
the Bible is a revelation from God are of such 
cogency that they should command the assent of 
every reasonable man. The self-evident duty 
of the Christian Church, in an age of skepti- 
cism like the present, is to confront the doubt 
with the most powerful presentation and 
enforcement of the rational grounds for be- 
lief. 

We consider briefly a single phase of the gen- 
eral argument — that from the Unity of the 
Scriptures — as treated by Dr. Forsyth. 

(2) The Unity of the Scriptures has been 



154 AUTHORITY 

recently urged with special emphasis as an argu- 
ment for their Authority or Infallibility. 

We are glad that Dr. Forsyth has directed at- 
tention to it, in the paper already referred to. 
It is certainly a most remarkable fact, that a 
Book, made up of many books, written in dif- 
ferent ages, in different environments, in dif- 
ferent languages, by men of all varieties of tem- 
perament and degrees of culture, should yet have 
such wholeness, such unity, as to be clearly 
recognizable as One Book, — a fact best ex- 
plained by its own claim, that God entered into 
its production, superintending the human agents 
and agencies. 

Dr. Forsyth urges, that, in order to the full 
impression of this argument, the Bible should be 
read as a whole, made up of consentient and co- 
herent parts. But this insistence, as requiring 
breadth and persistence of mental vision, bids us 
pause for thought. 

To say, "We must read the Bible as a whole," 
is to assume the organic unity; considering its 
composition, it is to give it a unique value. 
Against those who, whilst maintaining that God's 
word is in the Bible, feel yet at liberty to handle 
its contents and compositions so freely as to treat 
it practically like any other book, it is not strictly 
an argument to establish this authority of the 
Bible as "God's redeeming Word in Christ's 



BIBLE AUTHORITY 155 

Cross," to say : "It is not the Bible that contains 
God's Word, so much as God's Word that con- 
tains the Bible"; unless, indeed, the Bible is 
made an integral part of God's Word. 

And then we dare not be so concessive as to 
say, "The Bible is not a voucher but a preacher." 
For we remember the Bible's own warning: "I 
testify unto every man that heareth the words of 
the prophecy of this book, if any man shall add 
unto them, God shall add unto him the plagues 
which are written in this book: and if any man 
shall take away from the words of the book of 
prophecy, God shall take away his part from the 
tree of life, and out of the holy city, which are 
written in this book." Unless we feel sure that 
we do find both corroboration and correction in 
our Christian experiences ; unless we can turn to 
the Bible religiously, not critically; unless it is 
an infallible guide whose face value will be sus- 
tained by those who read it religiously — and 
those who do not read it thus give it no such 
value — unless, I say, the Bible not only proves 
an infallible guide, but is believed to be such, its 
authority will not distill the spirit of devotion. 
The devout attitude, upon which Dr. Forsyth 
himself insists, in the reading of the Bible, pre- 
supposes belief in the so much depreciated 
"Biblicism" which says: "The Bible says, there- 
fore God says." 



156 AUTHORITY 

But Dr. Forsyth emphasizes the recognition 
of the Unity given to the Bible by God's Pur- 
pose of Redemption running through it. 

Dr. Forsyth is very explicit about this. He 
says: 

"The unity of the Bible is organic, total, vital, 
evangelical; it is not merely harmonious, balanced, 
statuesque. It is not the form of symmetry but the 
spirit of reconciliation. Strike a fragment from a 
statue and you ruin it. Its unity is mere symmetry 
of the kind that is ruined so. But the unity of the 
Bible is like the unity of Nature. It has a living power 
always to repair loss and transcend lesion. The Bible 
unity is given it by the unity of a Historic Gospel de- 
veloping, dominant, not detailed. . . . If we are 
to take the Bible as Christ did, we may not feel com- 
pelled to take the whole Bible, but we must take the 
Bible as a whole. . . . The unity and power of 
the Bible is sacramental; it is not mechanical." 

Views and arguments like those just quoted, 
touching the unity of the Bible — containing 
much of wholesome truth and yet involving or 
implying something of serious error — appear 
so frequently and are so generally prevalent that 
they require close attention. 

It is evident that the notion of unity, as held 
here, is looked upon as brought to the Bible from 
without. It may be granted that the regnant 



BIBLE AUTHORITY 157 

Gospel of a Gracious God as moral Redeemer 
makes the Bible speak with that authority which 
lays hold of the believer; but the Bible appear- 
ing as a whole, as a vital unity, being a sacramen- 
tal Scripture, it must be, indeed, the adequate 
medium of this Gospel of Christ. By what au- 
thority is this unity, this wholeness guaranteed? 
It would seem only an unjustified assumption, 
unless we concede an intrinsic, objective harmony 
and unity, which makes the Bible indeed God's 
Word inspired as believed of old. 

The recognition of the presence of this in- 
trinsic harmony and unity in God's World gave 
birth to Modern Science — true Science being im- 
possible until the scientific investigator was will- 
ing to proceed upon the postulate that "every 
part of the universe is constructed on principles 
that will yield clear meaning to his search for 
unity, law, and order." The beginning of the 
recognition of a similar objective harmony and 
unity in God's Word — which like God's World 
is a complete Whole — which prepares a way for 
carrying the same scientific postulate into the 
study of the Bible — foreshadows and indeed in- 
troduces a new era in Biblical investigation. 
The current view of Biblical unity — as something 
brought to the Bible from without — must needs 
be supplemented by this conception; which like- 
wise furnishes a direction and a caution touching 



158 AUTHORITY 

the way in which the Scriptures should be criti- 
cally handled. 

Is it sound reasoning to try to justify muti- 
lations of the form of the living original, in how- 
ever small degree, when we admit that the or- 
ganism as a whole is essential to the individual 
life, and that this whole is dependent upon its 
component parts? To say that it will survive, 
that it has not the "mere symmetry of a statue," 
is pleading indulgence for a wanton act, which 
is felt to require defense. But the justification 
of acts of mutilation on this ground can be noth- 
ing less than to show an improvement. If this 
could be shown — as it is not shown — it would 
destroy both infallibility and real "wholeness" or 
unity. It is admitted that by striking parts 
from a statue it is ruined. Yet, does a statue, 
as a representation, exact copy and true imita- 
tion of life, include superfluous or cumbersome 
elements, which the living original has not? 

It seems strange that men who admittedly 
value the Bible as expressive of God's revelation, 
in some way yet God's book and unique, will, on 
the other hand, labor under this unwarranted 
contrast between the Bible as we have it, and 
what they have called the Bible of the Bible, or 
God's Word in the Bible. If our terms are, 
however, to mean anything, it is evident that, 
either God's revelation is adequate, and then au- 



BIBLE AUTHORITY 159 

thoritative; or we have to proclaim our so-called 
unassisted reason authority over the Scriptures. 
And, in the latter case, I do not see why we 
should specially need a Bible at all. Your 
choice is between alternatives; you are to submit 
to its authority, if the Book is to guide you in 
any real sense; or you may discriminate as to 
the very validity of the Book and its contents, 
but in that case it is an illusion to fancy yourself 
guided at all. If you are to be led, you must 
learn the "grammar of assent" to your leader and 
to what he is to lead you. You do not under- 
stand all; there are difficulties, mysteries, per- 
plexing things in it, — as indeed there are in 
God's World. As you cannot establish your 
own infallible authority, it has to come to you. 
Perhaps you do not fully understand it all, but 
"God is His own interpreter, and He will make 
it plain." 

It should be further noted that the issue as to 
the authority or infallibility of the Bible does 
not involve taking all the parts of it as of equal 
value. I know of no believer in the infallibility 
of the Scriptures who means to maintain that he 
therefore does, or must, value every part of it 
alike, or claim to understand every particular. 
Most believers feed with preference upon those 
sections which find them, which speak to them 
most potently. Some limit themselves almost 



160 AUTHORITY 

exclusively to specific portions of Scripture, with- 
out having even so much as raised the question 
that this might imply inferiority of other parts, 
or even render them superfluous to the Bible. 
The principle at issue is the authority of the 
Bible as God's Book. 

As to the use of analogy, suggested by Dr. 
Forsyth — which is intended for concession to 
those who discard this Biblical authority — we 
would ask: Though its unity is not mere sym- 
metry or statuesque, any more than is that of 
any living organism, does that justify at all the 
claim to mutilate the organism, the whole? If 
there be a whole at all, the parts must in some 
way function harmoniously in this whole; relate 
to it in some subservient, tributary way. We 
can survive the loss of some parts of our body; 
the loss of some parts, whose functioning is not 
known, would not perceptibly change the work- 
ing of our organism. If this principle is not 
to be applied so as to mutilate the structure of 
the living, bodily organism, neither should it be 
applied to the Bible, if such a unity or whole- 
ness is granted in it. And this expression, the 
Unity of the Bible — just as its being "God's 
Book," "Divine Revelation," "Holy Writ," etc., 
— would mean simply that its Truth stands ob- 
jectively real, over man with authority. 

Revelations, claiming supernatural origin, 



BIBLE AUTHORITY 161 

are understood to arise not from human experi- 
ence, but to have been projected by God into 
human life as normative and infallible stand- 
ards, i. e., possess Divine authority. A distinc- 
tion between direct and indirect revelation rests 
upon a false psychology, since it involves the 
idea of unmediated revelation. Revelation to 
be revelation at all must, from the nature of the 
case, be mediated by some form to the recipient. 
We cannot even conceive of consciousness with- 
out an implied content. The subject-conscious- 
ness involves an object. The customary dis- 
tinction aims, however, rather at a difference be- 
tween original or final and derived authority. 
The first, being self -revelation, finds man while 
man finds the latter only after the first is estab- 
lished, and as corroborative evidence. Of 
course, all derived social authority, relative in 
form and emphasis, is in the end warranted by 
Divine Authority; but social life as a whole does 
not go to the source of this final authority. 
That Divine revelation has to come in the same 
way as all other knowledge affords no sufficient 
reason for classing it with other knowledge. 
This is indeed neglected by those who treat 
Christianity as mere historic fact and the Bible 
as mere literature. When historical Christianity 
and the historical revelation of the Bible become 
merely descriptive terms, then both may be con- 



162 AUTHORITY 

ceived of as made of a piece with all other his- 
toric events, as purely human product. If such 
a procedure be adopted, it should be borne in 
mind that the claim of supernatural origin for 
both has been dismissed at the start, inasmuch as 
these events are presumed to be brought wholly 
within the limits of the historic past. Where the 
inadequacy of historic explanation is perceived, 
while this procedure is still insisted upon, resort 
is taken to allowing traditional inspiration in a 
merely nominal sense, in order to bolster up the 
fact of revelation. To keep the closed circle of 
historic events in which we may trace how men 
successively conceived of God, not without his 
divine impulses, and yet to affirm a self -reve- 
lation of God to man as an impact which either 
had no result at all, or resulted in the same faulty 
human products, seems an illogical device. It is 
difficult to see the help or need of a Divine in- 
spiration the outcome of which is just as faulty 
as all other mere human knowledge. And yet 
such is the logic of that view which retains a be- 
lief in inspired men, but not in an inspired book. 
One may go the whole length with the Roman 
Catholic Church and vest the Church (i. e. the 
clergy) with this authority. In that case the 
authority of the Bible is subordinate to the in- 
spired priest; but another priest is another 
Christ! We are not now concerned with the 



BIBLE AUTHORITY 163 

question whether these claims of super-natural 
origin can be vindicated in the face of modern 
criticism. We admit the point urged by an im- 
patient unbeliever against the clinging to an au- 
thority which is admittedly no more acknowl- 
edged. Bargy compares this procedure to "the 
retreat of an army in covering which all the 
members fall one by one. It arrives at last in 
an inaccessible place of refuge. The army has 
no more men, but is safe. . . . Little by 
little parts of the Bible were given up, one by 
one, without counting they were surrendered to 
the scientists, but the sanctity of the whole was 
maintained." ("Religion in Society in the 
United States.") 

McPeeters cautions wisely in regard to these 
problems of the higher criticism. He says in an 
article in the Princeton Theological Review : 

"We should not be misled by current contempt for 
'authority.' Let us rather hope that this is merely 
a passing phase of intellectual bumptiousness and con- 
fused thought. To say that the problem of the Higher 
criticism cannot be settled by 'authority' is either to 
say that there are no persons who are competent to 
settle them in the use of internal evidence or otherwise; 
or it is to say that for the great majority of man- 
kind they cannot be settled at all. For, whatever the 
process employed to solve the problems of Higher 
Criticism, provided it really solves them, he who is mas- 



164 AUTHORITY 

ter of that process is in a position authoritatively to 
solve those problems, for any and all others. Else why 
do we hear so much about the 'assured results' of a cer- 
tain school of critics? This label so conspicuously in 
evidence upon their goods would seem to have but one 
possible object, namely, to beget in the public the con- 
viction that there are those who are competent to settle 
these vexing questions for them. But, if so, then these 
questions can be settled by authority. And if they can 
be settled by authority, who shall say that they may not 
be settled upon the authority of our Lord and His 
apostles? What, if our Lord assumes the ability and 
the right to settle them? Shall we repudiate his au- 
thority at this point? After all, for most persons, so 
far as these problems are concerned, it is simply a 
question as to whether they will accept their solution 
of these from Christ and His apostles, or from certain 
modern scholars who, quoad hoc, affect to be better in- 
formed and safer guides than Christ Himself." 
("The Determination of Religious Value the Ultimate 
Problem of the Higher Criticism." July, 1908.) 

All that concerns us at present is whether the 
authority of Christianity and of the Bible can be 
retained along with the invalidation of these 
claims. It will be readily seen that we face here 
again the same problem of causal connection. 
Did Christ and the Bible come to be recognized 
as authoritative because of inherent original au- 
thority, or is this recognition the projection of 



BIBLE AUTHORITY 165 

a faith-state which made authoritative what was 
not so in itself, and even elaborated a theory 
of Divine origin and inspiration in its defense? 
It would leave us to explain, whence this strong 
sense of authority. 

If the Bible is its own authority, it is well to 
read the Bible itself rather than to read about 
it. There has been so much talking about the 
Bible that it is only fair to let it now speak for 
itself. For it is surprising to find how little fa- 
miliar the average church member, or even the 
modern preacher, is with the Bible! This cir- 
cumstance appears so significant in this connec- 
tion that it may well give us pause to reflect, and 
repeat the locus classical: "Every Scripture in- 
spired of God is also profitable for teaching, for 
reproof, for consideration which is in righteous- 
ness, that the man of God may be complete, 
furnished completely unto every good work." 

It has also been suggested that, though one 
might concede the whole of the Bible to be true, 
and therefore authoritative, this need not bind 
us now, inasmuch as some parts were true and 
needed at one time, but are no longer applicable 
or even desirable as norms. These are, indeed, 
rightfully in the Bible, because they were re- 
quired in the developmnt of Christianity. This 
view, however, needs little consideration, as it 
resolves truth and authority into a merely func- 



166 AUTHORITY 

tional fitness of the organ. The authority of 
truth is incompatible with the notion of expedi- 
ency. The concession is meaningless and the 
view of truth thoroughly pragmatic. The seri- 
ous-minded theologian is concerned with truth 
and adheres to the semper ubique ab omnibus. 
He is therefore disinclined to dismiss or discount 
any truth, so far as ascertained, because of its 
incompleteness, nor will he entertain the idea of 
truth — if it be truth at all — ever becoming obso- 
lete. The term "new truth," which is so much 
in the air, is a misnomer as opposed to "old 
truth," for all truth is one. The term may be 
freely admitted in the sense of additional truth. 
Fortunately, however, it seems usually to mean 
alleged truths that are destined to remain essen- 
tially new, inasmuch as they have not enough au- 
thority in them ever to grow old, not being au- 
thorized by the Truth they ignore, i. e., the tran- 
scendent, everlasting source of all truth and au- 
thority. For the theologian, as for every truth- 
seeker, the word of Clough expresses a deep 
conviction : 

"It fortifies my soul to know 
That, though I perish, Truth is so." 



CHAPTER XVI 

AN OBJECTIVE SOURCE OF 
AUTHORITY 

Authority means recognized, established 
power, witness, statement, command, etc., ac- 
cepted and obeyed without any questioning. It 
implies the sentiment of Don Diegue in Le Cid 
of Corneille: 

"On doit ce respect au pouvoir absolu 
De n'examiner rien quand un roi a voulu." 

It is experienced, felt, and taken with the 
sense of objective validity. It exists (ex- 
sistere), it stands out before us, independent of 
us or of our conception. Though its efficacy for 
us be largely determined by our relation to it, 
the authority as generally received is only its 
subjective aspect, its recognition by men. A 
source of information, or a duly accredited fact, is 
considered sufficient to give authority to a state- 
ment, as, viz., an authoritative witness. But it 
must be borne in mind that this acceptance of au- 
thority, the power derived from opinion, respect 
or esteem, is the resulting influence of authority it- 
self. Dr. Forsyth in conceding to the Bible only 

167 



168 AUTHORITY 

this kind of authority is reasoning in a circle 
when he tries to authorize the Gospel conception 
by the Bible. Authority, as objectively resid- 
ing in the forms of life, and in historic develop- 
ment, refers to the inherent truth of these forms ; 
it has self-evident justification. It is the same, 
when in daily intercourse the utterance is heard: 
Who or what is your authority? This is a char- 
acteristic inquiry inasmuch as it asks for a guar- 
antee to establish the reliability of that to which 
assent is given. This authorization is not always 
exhaustively established for those who thus ques- 
tion, nor do they require this. It is sufficient 
when subjective needs and required guarantees 
are met in such a way as to produce acknowledg- 
ment of the truth. The question calls forth an 
authority beyond the first alleged authority. 
The subsequent endeavor aims to have this au- 
thority acknowledged as objective fact, thus af- 
fecting the personal witness by meeting and sub- 
duing the individual authority residing in the 
verdicts of conscience and reason. It would seem 
that this is putting objective authority out of 
court by bringing it before the bar of individual 
approval. Yet, in leaving the defendant to es- 
tablish his claim, recourse must needs be taken 
to authority of some sort in the procedure to 
establish the recognition of some form of author- 
ity before the critical mind. 



SOURCE OF AUTHORITY 169 

This yielding to final authority seldom re- 
quires exhaustive verification on the ground of 
implicit reliance on self-evident truth — the au- 
thority of authority. In the exercise of faith, we 
accept as a final authority those facts and forms 
which function creditably in accordance with in- 
dividual requirements in regard to truth. Thus 
a scholar, who presents his subject exhaustively, 
is considered an authority on his subject. He 
gives first hand evidences which are recognized 
as such. Consequently his statements made 
from original, direct, personal contact with facts, 
as first hand evidence, are received and 
recognized as authoritative by others. This is 
strikingly illustrated in the concluding remark 
of the Gospel of Matthew, which at the end of 
the Sermon on the Mount, observes in regard to 
Christ's teaching: "And after Jesus had ended 
these sayings the people were astonished at his 
doctrine for he taught as one having authority 
and not as the scribes." 

The word used is, &£ouoia = out of (His) 
being, i. e., as direct first hand witness to truth. 
He, the law in living figure, the Way, the Truth 
and the Life Himself came to bear witness to 
the truth in a unique way as contrasted with 
scribal book-lore about the law. 

Indeed, very few things, even in our daily life, 
though of trivial importance, are verifiable by 



170 AUTHORITY 

each individual. So we constantly believe, speak 
and act on authority. This being the case in the 
daily intercourse of our common life in which 
we depend upon the detailed and penetrating 
study of experts, it is from the nature of the 
case much more so in questions relating to ulti- 
mate causes beyond which we cannot go, as, viz., 
God's Revelation in His Word. Wherever its 
verification is excluded, assent is required by the 
exercise of faith, which accepts its affirmation at 
face value, that is, on authority. Reason 
recognizes its own limits. It simply accepts, 
but does not establish the trustworthiness of our 
senses, that the world has objective existence, 
that the laws of thought yield truth, that there 
is correspondence between thought and being, 
between subject and object, spirit and matter. 

Even if, in the ordinary departments of so- 
cial, civil, and religious life, the impossible 
proposition that we go back for authorization to 
those primordial truths without which the argu- 
mentation in justification of any specific form of 
authoritative truth would be impossible, should 
be insisted upon; or if the critical disposition 
should take for granted only a few propositions 
as established and immune from critical investi- 
gation; in either case, the acceptance of some 
prima facie evidence must enter in. It is there- 
fore an amazingly superficial assumption that 



SOURCE OF AUTHORITY 171 

modern writers make when they say, "We want 
truth for authority, not authority for truth." 
The first is what we are in search of; we cannot 
claim to have it already; and it is safe to say 
that we shall not get it, if we follow the method 
proposed in the latter part of this motto. We 
feel, therefore, constrained to repeat the greater 
wisdom of old "credo ut intelligam." As a mat- 
ter of fact, authority is in full force in all depart- 
ments of life. 

Professor James touches upon this subject in 
his essay, "The Will to Believe." He says: 

"We may regard the chase for truth as paramount, 
and the avoidance of error as secondary, or we may, 
on the other hand, treat the avoidance of error as more 
imperative, and let the truth take its chance." 

I suppose — as Professor James himself sug- 
gests — that of these two alternatives we have 
only a Hobson's choice. Giving the "first and 
great commandment to would-be knowers": We 
must know the truth; and we must avoid error, 
he insists that these "are not two ways of stating 
an identical commandment, they are two sepa- 
rate laws." And again: 

"Although it may indeed happen that when we be- 
lieve the truth A, we escape as an incidental consequence 



172 AUTHORITY 

from believing the falsehood B, it hardly ever happens 
that by merely disbelieving B we necessarily believe A. 
We may in escaping B fall into believing other false- 
hoods, C or D, just as bad as B; or we may escape 
B by not believing anything at all, not even A." 

It is strange that this statement should occur 
in the essay which so ably sets forth the influence 
of "temperamental atmosphere" and character 
upon our intellectual beliefs. It simply shows 
how the views of a candid, empiric philosopher 
are vitiated by his pluralistic belief. It appears 
sufficiently evident that a suspense of belief — 
whatever its possibility in specific cases — as a 
rule of conduct at least, is impossible. There 
is, then, really only one rule : We must know the 
truth, which incidentally implies that we are to 
avoid error. It is the sense of the latter injunc- 
tion that raises the query, "What is your au- 
thority?" It is the negative safeguard to give 
assent only to duly accredited facts, to yield to 
the right of authority, to truth. Now, it would 
seem that Professor James, in speaking so forci- 
bly about Clifford's adverse disposition towards 
Christianity, should have seen that there is no 
danger of his choosing any form of it. The 
specific forms, the cases presented to us, appeal 
to us, or fail to do so, according as we have 
fashioned and molded our character. It is not, 



SOURCE OF AUTHORITY 173 

therefore, a question at all of putting the choice. 
We start out with the positive injunction, im- 
plying the negative aspect of rejecting that 
which does not stand on the rightful authority of 
truth. Nor is this "enfant terrible," Clifford, 
urging suspense of judgment because of choice, 
but rather on account of "insufficient evidence," 
on the plea that every asset is unwarranted un- 
til the evidence is complete. Just as James him- 
self assures us, — "Evidently, then, our non-in- 
tellectual nature does influence our convictions." 
. . . As a rule we disbelieve all facts and the- 
ories for which we have no use. For Clifford 
Christianity is a dead hypothesis from the start 
(consequently excluded from the choice which 
Professor James proposes). So truth may be- 
come a dead issue for one by constantly running 
into error, and error lose its insidious tempta- 
tions for him whose candor sincerely makes for 
truth. 

It should be noticed that Professor James in- 
sists on limiting to the subjective attitude meta- 
physical implications. The psychologist gets 
the better of the metaphysician. In his Pragma- 
tism the whole of metaphysics is let down prac- 
tically into the sphere of psychology. The great 
physicist, Du Bois Reymond, also makes an un- 
warranted inference in his famous address: 
"Uber die Grenzen des Naturerkennens" with 



174 AUTHORITY 

the same subjectivistic bias. He says: "Dass 
es in Wirklichkeit keine Qualitaten geibt, folgt 
aus der Zergliederung unserer Sinneswahrneh- 
mungen. . . . Eigenschaftlos, wie sie aus 
der subjectiven Zergliederung hervorgeht, ist 
die Welt auch fur die durch objective Betrach- 
tung gewonnene mechanische Anschauung, 
welche statt Schall und Licht nur Schwingungen 
eines eigenschaftslosen, dort als wagbare hier 
als scheinbar unwagbare Materie sich darbieten- 
den Urstoffes kennt." From the fact that sensa- 
tions are conditioned in their reception, it does 
not follow that the differentiation is wholly an 
affair of the receiving agent in response to the 
activity of a property-less sub-stratum of undif- 
ferentiated substance. As there is no meta- 
psychic, we must leave sensations their represen- 
tative meaning. 

Our belief in truth, that there is a truth, and 
that our minds are made for it, would stand, even 
if our social system did not confirm it. Our 
hearts respond to the authoritative announce- 
ment that we were created in the image of God, 
as it says in Gen. i. 27, "And God created man 
in his own image, in the image of God created 
he him." This belief is not the result of desire 
and instinct, but is anterior and basal to them. 

God has left his witness in the heart, and if 
we are walking in rectitude of will, the Spirit of 



SOURCE OF AUTHORITY 175 

truth will lead us into all truth. We find cor- 
roboration of this everywhere. For truth is in- 
deed one, as God is one. But Prof. James dis- 
owns this, until demonstrably verified to the in- 
tellect. Yet, Prof. James, in another brilliant 
essay on "The Sentiment of Rationality," says: 
"The necessity of faith as an ingredient in our 
mental attitude is strongly insisted on by the 
scientific philosophers of the present day; but 
by a singularly arbitrary caprice they say that it 
is only legitimate when used in the interests of 
one particular proposition, — the proposition, 
namely, that the course of nature is uniform. 
That nature will follow to-morrow the same 
laws that it follows to-day is, they all admit, a 
truth which no man can know; but in the inter- 
est of recognition as well as of action we must 
postulate or assume it." As Helmholtz says: 
"Hier gilt nur der eine Rath; vertraue und 
handle." And Professor Bain urges: "Our only 
error is in proposing to give any reason or justi- 
fication of the postulate, or to treat it as other- 
wise than begged at the very outset." Faith 
means belief in something concerning which 
doubt is still theoretically possible; and as the 
test of belief is willingness to act, one may say 
that faith is the readiness to act in a cause the 
prosperous issue of which is not certified to us 
in advance. In "Reflect Action and Theism" 



176 AUTHORITY 

James says: "I will only remind you that each 
one of us is entitled either to doubt or to believe, 
he does alike on his personal responsibility and 
risk." He quotes with approval the lines: 

("Du musst glauben, du musst wagen 
Denn die Gotter leihn kem Pf and, 
Nur ein Wunder kann dich tragen 
In das schone Wunderland.") 

"Believe you must, and risk. 
For Gods ne'er lend a pledge. 
A miracle alone can bear 
Into the beauty of that wondrous land." 

But, in spite of this, Professor James ought 
to be reminded that there is no metapsychic, and 
that we can find the home of truth within. And 
whether we can demonstrate their objective 
validity or not, we must take the primordial ver- 
dicts of conscience and reason on authority and 
as having objective reference. 



CHAPTER XVII 
PRAGMATISM AND AUTHORITY 

Professor James has made overmuch of the 
subjective aspect. In "The Will to Believe" he 
wrote: "The desire for a certain kind of truth 
here brings about that special truth's existence," 
and so it is in innumerable other cases. "Faith 
in a fact can help create a fact." "There are 
cases where faith creates its own verification," 
etc. This subjective aspect is not to be over- 
looked, and selective thinking, the personal equa- 
tion in the grouping and viewing of facts needs 
to be taken in account. Yet, not with disre- 
gard to objective truth. In fact, what does it 
matter if all knowledge is subjective? One may 
then well ask with Pilate in indifferent scorn 
that greatest of questions: "What is truth?" 

Since, then, Professor James espoused more 
pronouncedly the pragmatic attitude in disregard 
of objective reference of truth, he is left not only 
with things unrelated, but with a world of pure 
experience, which is unrelated. 

This pragmatism does make successful prac- 
tice the very essence of truth, and substitutes for 
the view of truth as "accordance of our ideas 

177 



178 AUTHORITY 

with reality," a valuation by the individual. 
This individual valuation is emphasized in the 
pragmatic school in proportion as the acceptance 
of truth at face value, i. e., as true representation 
of reality, is discredited. This shifting of em- 
phasis from what constitutes truth (treow = 
faithfulness to fact) to the always inadequate at- 
tempt at its verification is a hopeless and harm- 
ful confusion. Indeed, Professor Macbride 
Sterrett well says of this school: 

"What now is the fundamental principle of this ex- 
travagantly vaunted new theory that is styled prag- 
matism? As one reads most of the volumes, he becomes 
dazed and bewildered and ends with very vague ideas 
of what the thing really means. First these prag- 
matists give us to understand that truth as an objective 
system — truth, the search for which has been the object 
of all science and philosophy, is a mere cob-web of the 
intellect. Second, that all our judgments of reality are 
worth — or value — judgments. What is called truth 
and reality consists in bare practical effects. In science, 
for instance, if it serves our practical purposes better 
to use the Ptolemic instead of the Copernican theory 
in astronomy, then it is the true and real for us. In 
morals, if honesty is the best policy, then honesty is 
the truth. In philosophy, if we can get more out of 
our moral and religious life by believing in polytheism 
instead of monotheism, then polytheism is the truth, 
which is practically the view of Professor Howison and 



PRAGMATISM AND AUTHORITY 179 

Professor James and Professor Schiller. The cui bono 
scales are to give us the validity of judgments in all 
spheres. Reasonableness of truth is not a good in it- 
self. It is an abstraction. There is no truth, no ab- 
solute system of truth independent of the needs of men. 
Love of such supposed truth, which has always been the 
inspiration of thinkers, is rudely taken from us as the 
worship of a false god. Such truth is useless, and the 
useless is false. We can say that what is true in prag- 
matism is not new, and what is new in it — the attempt 
to substitute value- judgments in all cognition for judg- 
ments of truth and reality — is not true." ("The 
Freedom of Authority," p. 311ff.) 

Professor Sterrett defines "Authority" as 
"any power or influence through which one does 
or believes what he would not do of his own un- 
aided powers." (p. 6.) If this is understood as 
a personal dictum, as the command of superior 
enlarged personality, involving a reliance on, or 
committal to superior wisdom of wider or deeper 
experience in which truth is recognized by one's 
reason, it is quite pointed. 

In another essay ("Humanism and Truth," 
Mind, U. S. 52, p. 463) Professor James says: 
"Whether experience itself is due to something 
independent of all possible experience is a ques- 
tion which pragmatism declines to answer." 
And in "Pragmatism" he plainly declares : "Our 
account of truth is as account of truths in the 



180 AUTHORITY 

plural, of processes of leading, realized in rebus, 
and having only this quality in common, that 
they pay" (p. 218) . In making satisfaction the 
criterion of truth, in conceiving of "the true as 
that which gives the maximal combination of 
satisfactions," Professor James wrongs our in- 
herent sense of the authority of truth. Espe- 
cially does he ignore the sense of the moral im- 
plications of truth as revealed in our hearts. 

Would the gifted scientist could have said 
in a deeper sense than he meant to express when 
quoting Pascal: "Le coeur a ses raisons que la 
raison ne connait pas!" or have exclaimed with 
Paul: "With the heart man believeth unto 
righteousness." 

This pragmatic attitude whose bugbear is to 
give things real objective reference so that our 
knowledge fits the scheme of things, finds its 
"enfant terrible" in Mr. E. W. Lyman, who 
says, in an article "The Influence of Pragma- 
tism upon the Status of Theology," published in 
"Philosophy and Psychology," a commemorative 
volume by pupils of Professor Garland: 

"Meanwhile the actual absoluteness of Christianity, 
so far as it can be grounded in religious psychology and 
religious history, is undiminished by discrediting any 
artificial supplement that might be constructed through 
the aid of some supposed metaphysical necessity. The 



PRAGMATISM AND AUTHORITY 181 

recognition of the mere possibility that new values may 
arise, which may even be discontinuous with the old, 
does not mean the recognition that there have already 
arisen needs calling for such values ; it merely asserts 
the sovereignty of this additional practical need that, 
when new needs do arise, they should be satisfied by 
their appropriate values. It is true that the main- 
tenance of a right proportion in values may require the 
subordination of the new needs, but at all events they 
must not be suppressed in advance by a priori reason- 
ing. This priority of need to values is already an ele- 
ment in the standard value of Christianity." 

Mr. Lyman, in other words, is so pragmatic 
that he feels warranted in discrediting the au- 
thority of truth on the basis of his need of pos- 
sible needs. Yet, he seems to allow an ordering 
of our needs, which of course involves a rational 
procedure to maintain a right proportion of 
values. Strangely enough, the essay concludes 
with a tribute to faith. Now faith is the 
recognition of authority, on as reasonable 
grounds as the person exercising faith has at his 
disposal. Mr. Lyman, however, objects to au- 
thority on the strength of need and instinct. 
Indeed, the manward side of truth is all there is 
of truth. And this subjective aspect of truth 
which has come to displace its philosophy, is 
dominated by the physical functions which made 
the world of sense loom up large. This world- 



182 AUTHORITY 

view is practical with reference to the instant 
need of things ; it keeps a steady eye on the wants 
of the moment. It constitutes the utilitarian ex- 
pediency of our world-wise age which discards 
philosophy. As Schiller says: "Meanwhile till 
philosophy shall hold together the structure of 
the world, nature maintains its doings by hunger 
and by love." 

("Einstweilen, bis den Bau der Welt 
Philosophic zusammenhalt 
Erhalt sie (die Natur) das Getriebe 
Durch Hunger und durch Liebe.") 

— Die Weltweisen. 

The prevailing mode of determining religious 
and moral life from the sense of need rather than 
from its content, the attempt to confine all our 
outlook, our whole Weltanschauung, within the 
compass of humanity demands investigation. 
Against such meaningless designations of 
Christianity as Professor Lyman's declaration: 
"This priority of needs to values is already an 
element in the standard value of Christianity," 
it is gratifying to meet with the insistence on 
truth as the time-honored test, also for Chris- 
tianity. Professor Perry says in "The Moral 
Economy" : 

"There is one test of religion which has been uni- 



PRAGMATISM AND AUTHORITY 183 

versallj applied by believers and critics alike, a test 
which, I think, will shortly appear to deserve precedence 
over all others. I refer to the test of truth. Every 
religion has been justified to its believers and recom- 
mended to unbelievers on grounds of evidence. It has 
been verified in its working, or attested by either obser- 
vation, reflection, revelation, or authority. In spite of 
the general assent which this proposition will doubtless 
command, it is deserving of special emphasis at the 
present time. Students of religion have latterly shifted 
attention from its claims to truth to its utility and sub- 
jective form. This pragmatic and psychological study 
of religion has created no little confusion of mind con- 
cerning its real meaning, and obscured that which is 
after all its essential claim — the claim namely to offer 
an illumination of life." 

Maurice remarks at the conclusion of his work, 
"The Religions of the World and their Rela- 
tion to Christianity" (p. 245) : 

"In compliance with the directions of Boyle, I sought 
for that which seemed to be the most prevailing form 
of unbelief in our day ; and I found it in the tendency to 
look upon all theology as having its origin in the 
spiritual nature and faculties of man. This was as- 
sumed to be the explanation of other systems, why not 
apply it to Christianity? The questions we have asked 
are, 'Is it the adequate explanation of any system?' 
'Do not all demand another ground than the human 
one?' 'Is not Christianity the consistent asserter of 



184 AUTHORITY 

that higher ground?' 'Does it not distinctly and con- 
sistently refer every human feeling and consciousness 
to that ground?' 'Is it not for this reason able to in- 
terpret and reconcile the other religions of the earth?' 
'Does it not in this way prove itself to be not a human 
system, but the Revelation, which human beings re- 
quire ?' " 

The question, then, is: Can we reasonably 
proceed on this presupposition which makes need 
the criterion of objective, normative truth? It 
is generally admitted that what is true for me, 
is not therefore true in itself. Or, as we may- 
put it, our subjective apprehension of truth is not 
the same as the objective truth. Now, philo- 
sophic inquiries are made in search of principles 
by which reason may obtain a true knowledge of 
things. It is therefore essential that we lay 
special emphasis upon the presuppositions with 
which we begin any and all disquisitions. We 
must have some philosophic principles to begin 
with in order to give an orderly account and ex- 
planation of the facts as we see them. And both 
we and our theories must be judged in the light of 
our philosophy. It is therefore a wise custom, 
followed in many treatises, to devote first of all 
some discussion to the presuppositions with which 
we approach the subject; for as Bettex well 
said: "Die ganze Theorie von der Vorausset- 



PRAGMATISM AND AUTHORITY 185 

zungslosigkeit der Wissenschaft beruht auf der 
grossen, falschen Voraussetzung dass der 
Mensch voraussetzungslos sein konne." 

We hold that philosophy proceeds on the sup- 
position that there are no phenomena without 
some reality, which is their ground, and which 
appears in them. These phenomena, being 
forms or expressions of this objective reality, are 
as such of course not that reality itself. Meta- 
physics inquires into the nature of this objective 
reality which lies behind phenomena as their 
ground, and which in them enters into human 
experience. It thus endeavors to know phe- 
nomena in their deepest ground, to see their 
inner being and truth. This view, however, is 
wholly discarded by many contemporaries. 
Yet without first settling these points, discus- 
sions between representatives of different meta- 
physical convictions will prove fruitless. We 
may, however, fruitfully compare and contrast 
systems. Such reasoning, of course, does not 
create conviction, but rather corroborates and 
establishes views already held. As the recogni- 
tion of authority is an act of faith, we must not 
therefore consider faith to be the ground of 
truth, or the source of knowledge of truth, but 
rather as a faculty of the soul to perceive and 
recognize objective truth. 



CHAPTER XVIII 
FAITH AND AUTHORITY 

Dr. H. Bavinck observes in "De Zekerheid des 
Geloofs" (p. 21 ff ) : 

"Certitude is something different from truth, 
though closely related to it. Truth is agreement be- 
tween thought and reality and expresses the relation 
between the content of our consciousness and the ob- 
ject of our knowledge (i. e., fidelity to reality). The 
assurance of faith, however, does not express a rela- 
tion, but a quality, a characteristic, a condition of a 
knowing subject. Assurance of faith obtains when the 
soul reposes perfectly in the object of knowledge. 
Truth carries this certitude, but not every certitude is 
proof of truth." 

Elsewhere — in "Godsdienst en Godgeleerheid" 
— he remarks in this connection : 

"Troelsch recognized rightly that comparative his- 
toric studies at best can only demonstrate that Chris- 
tianity is the highest of the present religions relatively, 
that there is at present no higher religion than Chris- 
tianity. Yet it is not susceptible of proof that Chris- 
tianity is the final (endgiiltige) revelation of God, that 

186 



FAITH AND AUTHORITY 187 

Christ is the Only begotten of the Father, — that is 
simply a matter of faith. Nature and history as such 
do not yield an absolute standard. It is the same in 
the sphere of right, of morals, or aesthetics, and also 
in the sphere of religion. The absolute standards 
which sciences use are derived from faith. This is 
more and more perceived and recognized in theology. 
Dr. Visscher's recent essay, 'Geen Theodicee,' treats 
the futility of logical proofs for the existence of God. 
Just as formerly the value of historic-apologetic argu- 
ments was over-rated, they are now in danger of being 
slighted, and the proof from experience is likely to be 
considered by many the only argument for the truth 
of Christianity. This is running to another extreme of 
one-sidedness and exaggeration. Experience is not 
conviction, and can never be the ground, standard, and 
vindication of revelation. But it is nevertheless the 
way in which the Christian religion is known and recog- 
nized by us in its absolute character. Rather, the 
Christian religion as the revelation of God in Christ 
Jesus His Only Son becomes an absolute certainty for 
us only by the way of saving faith. If the Christian 
religion be the absolute one, there can be no other way. 
And on the other hand, if it had to be demonstrated, 
it would ipso facto cease to be the absolute religion. 
From this standpoint, it will not appear strange, but 
rather quite natural, that the Gospel of Christ does 
not endeavor to justify itself before the human reason. 
It witnesses, but does not argue. It claims authority, 
demands recognition, but renounces all attempts to se- 
cure approval on the strength of scientific arguments. 



188 AUTHORITY 

Yea, it freely acknowledges that the cross of Christ 
must seem foolishness to the prudential wisdom of the 
world." 

This, as Bible students will readily admit, is a 
prominent note in the Scriptures. This 
sovereignty of faith, of the recognition of au- 
thority before the claims of reason in its demand 
for rational explanation, has ever been and still 
is the great divide in religious controversies. 
Rationalism violates faith in the interest of 
reason, whereas the traditional Christian views 
have always emphasized faith as supreme over 
reason. M. Scherer says in "Revue de Stras- 
bourg," p. 66: "I believe in authority whenever 
I admit a fact simply on my faith in a witness." 
And yet liberal tendencies of to-day manifest an 
increasing disposition to oppose authority in 
moral matters and to discard the miracles in in- 
tellectual matters. The resort to subjectivism, 
Ritschlianism and pragmatism have not im- 
proved matters. Faith and authority are too 
closely allied. And it is evident that in subjec- 
tivism real faith and authority are rendered im- 
possible. Religion is a metaphysico-psycho- 
logical fact. Its sphere is the human personal- 
ity, but this is not its ground, and therefore can- 
not be its sole explanation, as some writers think. 
Professors Coe, Starbuck, and James have paid 



FAITH AND AUTHORITY 189 

almost exclusive attention to experience, without 
letting objective truth come to its right. They 
have subsumed metaphysics under psychology. 
Men, little interested in metaphysical study, la- 
bor in experimental psychology to reduce religion 
to its lowest terms, to biological ethics explained 
by physiological functioning of the organism. 
Dr. Stanley Hall's endeavor in this direction has 
been without much success. 

It must not be forgotten that revelation and 
religious experience are correlative, each imply- 
ing the other. When the unseen is measured by 
the seen, the ideal brought within the compass 
of the actual, and the ought identified with what 
is, religious, ethical and spiritual interests lose 
their ultimate ground. 

In this materialism of France this method is 
predominant. Standing firmly on the facts 
seen, the facts of greater moment are scoffed at 
as fiction. Professor Gustave Le Bon utters a 
wail of sensational alarm over this state of af- 
fairs. Writing under the title, "Will Civiliza- 
tion Fade and Die Out," in the New York 
American of February 24, 1907, he says: 

"Science has renewed our ideas and deprived our re- 
ligious and social conceptions of all authority. Visible 
decadence seriously threatens the vitality of the ma- 
jority of the great white nations, and especially of 



190 AUTHORITY 

those known as the Latin nations, — and really Latin 
nations, if not as regards their blood, at least as re- 
gards their traditions and education. Every day they 
are losing their initiative, their energy, their will and 
their capacity to act. The satisfaction of perpetually 
growing material wants tends to become their sole 
ideal. The family is breaking up; the social springs 
are strained. Discontent and unrest are spreading in 
all classes, from the richest to the poorest. 

"Like the ship that has lost its compass and strays 
as chance and winds direct, the modern man wanders 
haphazard through the spaces formerly peopled by the 
gods and rendered a desert by science. He has lost his 
faith, and with it his hopes. The individual is coming 
to be solely preoccupied with himself. Consciences are 
capitulating and morality is deteriorating and dying 
out." 

The McAll Mission describes the situation in 
France as follows: 

"Religiously, at the present moment France is in a 
condition of 'eclipse of faith.' Of her 38,000,000 not 
over 8,000,000 or 10,000,000 at the outside remain, 
in any practical way, attached to the Roman Catholic 
Church. Clericalism, discredited at the polls, and 
capitalism, trembling for its property rights, in the 
presence of socialism, seek, in unnatural alliance, to 
perpetuate exhausted superstitution, while socialism 
counts its recruits. Among the working classes, licen- 
tiousness, alcoholism, and home-life devoid of moral 



FAITH AND AUTHORITY 191 

training, are rapidly disintegrating the family. Ab- 
sinthe numbers its victims by the hundred thousands, 
annually." 

The French psychologist portrays in dark 
colors the condition of his people. What we are 
concerned with here is to call to mind the "esprit 
gaulois," the peculiar trait of the French nation, 
its lack of reverence, — that negative, critical at- 
titude which mocks, jests and makes cynical 
sneers at spiritual things. It is this "esprit 
gaulois," opposing submission to all authority, 
which dominates the national life of France. It 
will recognize no restraint, and revolts boldly 
against an authority which makes appeal to God. 
Well did La Fontaine express a French senti- 
ment: "Notre ennemi c'est notre maitre, Je vous 
le dis en bon francais." 

Unbelief thus raises the ultimate question of 
the supernatural. The issues are clear. On 
neither side is demonstration or proof possible. 
The eternal cannot be comprehended within 
time-limits or fully expressed in temporal forms. 
To speak in evolutionary fashion of an eternal 
becoming, is to ignore the fruitless attempts of 
the Greeks and to show little appreciation of the 
real problem. The kenotic theories of Thoma- 
sius, Gess, Ebrard and Martensen endeavored 
to solve this problem by settling it at the outset. 



192 AUTHORITY ' 

Cf. an able and scholarly discussion by H. C. 
Powell: "Principle of the Incarnation with 
especial Reference to the Relation between our 
Lord's Divine Omniscience and His Human 
Consciousness." It contains an interesting dis- 
cussion of Kant's view of time and space as the 
postulates of the inner and outer perception. 

After all, change is in the hand that knows no 
change. We may say that this world alone al- 
lows of the application of the time-conception 
inasmuch as with the world's existence time be- 
came in the world's process. Time is unthink- 
able without the world, and it is contradictory 
therefore to imagine a time in which God was 
without the world. But to say that there is no 
time thinkable in which the world was not is 
simply to state that the world had been as long 
as it has been. Without the Eternal Spirit there 
would not be any time. Time and change issue 
forth from eternity and return to it for judg- 
ment. Eternity holds absolute sway over time 
and change, and "stands at the heart of all 
time." This eternity is the source of each mys- 
terious variation, and it is also the unseen provi- 
dence which controls and directs all the varia- 
tions to their collective end. When Ritschl 
says: "What is Eternity but the power of the 
spirit over time?" he simply gave expression to 
the idea that change rises from the changeless. 



FAITH AND AUTHORITY 193 

Reality is timeless. What really is does not ad- 
mit of a beginning or an end. It is therefore 
begging the question to endeavor to explain 
eternity in terms of time; — it is a contradiction 
in terms. Equally contradictory is the effort to 
explain reality by its appearance in time. The 
"tertium quid," the undefined and undefinable, 
does not arise from, else it could not give rise to, 
the temporal world. 

"The rose-seed holds the glory of the rose 
Within its heart sweet summer fragrance bides. 
And there each petal's tender blush-tint hides 
Till June bids nature all her charms disclose. 

"The sleeping infant's heart and brain may hold 
The glorious power that in future years 
Shall move the listening world to smiles and tears. 
'Tis life potential that the days unfold. 

"One act of Will divine, and lo ! the seed 
Of growth was sown in young creation's heart, 
From Life Eternal hath all life its start, 
And endless change as changeless law we read." 

A true explanation of the world and history 
is therefore in its nature revelation, to be appre- 
hended only by faith. No painstaking scrutiny 
of the facts of reality will ever disclose the truth 
that stands over it, and pervades it. Levy- 



194 AUTHORITY 

Briihl says well: "Une science ne peut etre nor- 
mative en tant que theorique (p. 14 La morale 
et la science des moeurs). The eye of faith 
perceives that higher order in which the facts of 
nature, our knowledge and ethical norms are 
reconciled. Professor Dewey in the very at- 
tempt to argue in his celebrated essay the "Logi- 
cal Conditions of a Scientific Treatment of Mo- 
rality" admits that the factor of "character" 
which is to be in reciprocal determination with 
the "situation judged" is not so evident as is the 
latter. Both factors, however, involve upon 
closer analysis psychological and sociological 
studies which in view of the complexity of the 
subject as well as of the unanalyzable normative 
element prove the effort to be utterly futile. 



CHAPTER XIX 
KANT ON AUTHORITY 

Because Kant failed to give the categorical 
imperative specific form, and because the norma- 
tive principle of his ethics lacks content, the sage 
of Konigsberg has been severely criticized by 
HofFding. The Danish scholar uses this point 
of the Kantian ethics to attack what is strongest 
and most true in Kant's ethical teaching, 
namely, its affirmation of an objective, authori- 
tative norm, which alone makes possible a cate- 
gorical imperative. We are not unmindful here 
of the fact that Kant in proclaiming the cate- 
gorical imperative of the practical reason as the 
final authority of duty thereby declares reason 
to legislate within the soul by its own right, i. e., 
proclaimed in ethics autonomy. We, however, 
feel that the moral law emanated from God, hav- 
ing its ground in His essential Being. Thus 
only can we account for the unconditional claim 
on man's obedience. Hoffding says in his 
"Problems of Philosophy": 

"In our estimation of worth and our purposes the 
inner nature of our feeling and will is revealed. As 

195 



196 AUTHORITY 

the concept of purpose depends on the concept of worth, 
so also the concept of the norm depends on the con- 
cept of purpose. The norm is the rule for the ac- 
tivity which is necessary to attain the purpose. It was 
a fatal thing for the treatment of the problem of 
worth when Immanuel Kant reversed the relation and 
tried to derive the concept of purpose from the concept 
of the norm (of law). This is a psychological im- 
possibility." 

It is well after all, that Kant's categorical im- 
perative remains an impersonal dictum without 
content, for it has ever been the fatal blunder- 
ing of casuistry to define specific duties and to 
enjoin them as obligatory. To the individual is 
left the application of the ethical law, as he feels 
it, and as it presents itself to him. Hoffding, 
however, makes here the fatal blunder of lapsing 
onto descriptive science by insisting that the con- 
cept of purpose cannot be derived from the con- 
cept of norm (of law). This is to ignore the 
fact that ethics is a normative, not a descriptive, 
science. By defining norm "as the rule for 
the activity necessary to attain the purpose," the 
normative element becomes a fiction, inasmuch 
as the norms are severally made dependent on 
the agents who adopt them merely to reach cer- 
tain ends which they do pursue. Indeed! not 
always those which they ought to pursue. This 
procedure gives a method rather than a normative 






KANT ON AUTHORITY 197 

standard. It is psychologically impossible to 
explain the sentiment of ought from what is. 
The feeling of ought is an original, unanalyzable 
fact. The revelation of God at the heart of man 
is the original source of all religion, and also of 
the original source of all obligations and duties, 
of whatever specific content they may be. No 
strictly rational ethics, therefore, is possible. 
We cannot, even in theory, be good "without God. 
This, however, is the endeavor of "Ethical Cul- 
ture." Martensen well observes in this regard: 
"While religion without morality cannot count 
upon many advocates, morality without religion 
finds no lack of such." He remarks that "this 
abstract autonomic morality only appears at 
those seasons when there is also religious decay." 
("Christian Ethics," p. 15, 17.) The postulate, 
involved in every ethics, that the individual des- 
tiny at best coincides with the larger good, and 
conversely, assumes a theistic basis. And so 
does the originality of the moral sentiment in its 
commanding authority. Ethics discloses what 
is before us and behind us, the moral nature of 
what bears us and what leads us. What ought 
to be is felt to be the basis and ground as well 
as the goal of all that is. In the science of 
ethics, first and final causes are seen to be one; 
and thus in the ethical nature the heart of reality 
is laid bare. It is safe to predict that, in our age 



198 AUTHORITY 

of indifference towards philosophical discipline, 
we may expect a re-awakening of metaphysical 
studies through interest in ethical questions. 
Only when ethics rests on the religious basis of 
theistic belief have the English words "duty" 
and "ought" meaning, in that they bring in the 
One who is Creator and Judge, to whom is due, 
to whom is owed, to whom we pray that He "for- 
give us our debts as we forgive our debtors." 
Eduard von Hartmann says in "Das Religiose 
Bewusstsein der Menschheit," "All facts point 
to the circumstance that the ethical consciousness 
of man has developed exclusively on the basis of 
religious conviction, that ethics nowhere has 
arisen without this, and that in its specific color- 
ing it has everywhere been conditioned and de- 
termined by religion." To conceive of the pur- 
pose for which we are created, "the chief end of 
man to glorify God and enjoy Him forever," 
affords an objective authoritative norm. The 
impossibility of its psychological explanation 
only corroborates the fact of its being a pri- 
mordial rule inherent in the nature of God. But 
a rule which we form as a consequence of our 
own desires can never figure as such a norm for 
such a rule would be merely describing the func- 
tioning of our desires in our purposes, the record 
of a subjective, unethical condition of fact. 
Hoff ding, in common with the general tendency 



KANT ON AUTHORITY 199 

of our day to give wide scope to theories of 
values, inclines to subjective and individualistic 
views, which logically result in individualistic 
pleasure-pursuits. Against this tendency, the 
rigorism of Kant's ethical law stands as a whole- 
some truth. The ethical life, far from being 
a primrose way determined by transient pleas- 
ures, should be accepted as an exacting task 
under the demands of the Infinite! We are to 
learn to will our duty, not to shape our duties to 
our wills, for then what we call duties become 
simply our desires. Not whatever satisfies de- 
sire is good. Desire itself is to be brought to a 
test. As Professor Palmer tentatively puts it: 
"Pleasure probably is nothing else but the sense 
that some one of our functions has been appro- 
priately exercised. Every time, then, that a 
volition has been carried forth in the complex 
world and there conducted to its mark (and 
taken its inward effect) a gratified feeling 
arises." Pleasure, then, should rather be treated 
as an incident expression of the proper discharge 
of our function, our duty, "given us by some- 
thing which we cannot alter, fully estimate, or 
with damage evade." 

Hoffding well declares it a psychological im- 
possibility to derive the concept of purpose from 
the concept of law. Instead, however, of at- 
tempting to subsume the law under its contents, 



200 AUTHORITY 

which are but its specific expressions, showing 
the way in which we get this experiential 
evaluation of the law, he might rather have 
paused to reflect whether or not the ethical law 
of right or wrong is unanalyzable because origi- 
nal, and have recognized that God is the ultimate 
lawgiver and authority, as of old ! 



CHAPTER XX 

MATERIALISTIC TENDENCIES AND 
RITSCHLIANISM 

Although of late "Christian Science" has had 
a large following, and although idealistic phi- 
losophy has found favor with many, yet it is but 
natural that in an age of material achievements 
the slighted factor should be the spiritual world. 
Characteristic in this regard are the titles of the 
writings of Romanes. "A Candid Examina- 
tion of Theism," by Physicus, in which descrip- 
tive science holds him in a hard, grinding, causal 
mechanism without outlook upon a spiritual 
power behind, in, and beyond it. "A Candid 
Examination of Religion," by Metaphysicus, in 
which the facts of the inner life are given full 
recognition, and in which he feels himself again 
in possession of a Christian Weltanschauung. 
These books and the history of Romanes are well 
known and need no comment. It is also a mat- 
ter of general knowledge that the consistent 
atheist Nietzsche did away with "das Seelend- 
ing" and reduced the inner life to a "Begleiter- 
scheinung." Yet the most prevalent mode of 
thought reserves for the spiritual a place only in 

201 



202 AUTHORITY 

subjectivism. It is indeed a saddening result 
when modern scholarship is compelled to repeat as 
Christian what Goethe made Faust exclaim with 
unspeakable heartache: "The message indeed I 
hear, but I lack the faith. The miracle is the fa- 
vorite child of faith." "Die Botschaft hor' ich 
wohl, allein mir felht der Glaube: Das Wunder 
ist des Glaubens liebstes Kind." 

Loisy, as well as Harnack, distinguishes be- 
tween the Easter-message and the Easter- faith. 
The message is the objective, historic fact, an 
empty tomb: "He is not here," and faith merely 
concludes, or creates the conviction "He is 
risen." The risen Christ is an object of faith 
(objet de foi, in the sense of faith-product, not 
as lying at the basis of it, and perceived by 
faith), not a factual reality (realite de fait). 
The whole believing atmosphere of the early 
Church, this faith-state as fact appeals again to 
the faith of others. It is from faith to faith, but 
without objective ground in historic fact. 
Loisy's polemic books, "Autour d'un petit Livre," 
and "L'Evangile et l'Eglise," are able presenta- 
tions of the current subjective views which at- 
tempt to explain away the supernatural basis of 
Christianity. Neither Loisy nor Harnack is an 
approved representative of Catholic or Protes- 
tant Christianity. Yet, the excommunicated 
Abbot retains more ground for authority than 



RITSCHLIANISM 203 

the able church-historian, whose views lead to 
individualism. 

Exact science will not allow an objective fact 
which it cannot explain, and the method of ex- 
act science has been carried over into historical 
study. If, after all, sidelights have been util- 
ized and all circumstances bared, history does not 
explain the Christ as portrayed by the records 
and by the effects which He produced, then, in- 
stead of concluding that mere historic facts can- 
not explain Him, the explanation of the cause 
of the world's greatest event is sought in a pious 
fiction. Christ is the explanation of Christianity, 
and admittedly cannot be explained by circum- 
stance and earthly surroundings. The very at- 
tempt to explain His world-transforming power 
from faith-elements witnesses to the inadequacy 
of the historic method to explain Him. He is 
all-encompassing and future-regarding. No 
record of the past, therefore, will contain any- 
thing else than an earthly Christ. What a tre- 
mendous exercise of faith in the mystery of per- 
sonality is it for Harnack, on the strength of 
that mystery, to ascribe to Christ the miracle of 
sinlessness. This is the pious fiction of the 
"Zeitgeschichtliche Methode." Calvin's word 
deserves repeating here: "Totus Christus sed 
non totum quod in eo est." The earthly Christ 
was not the all of Christ. And even the earthly 



204 AUTHORITY 

Christ in sinlessness defies classification or ex- 
planation according to these faithless methods. 
A record of beginnings does not change the 
nature of the product, the successive phases of 
which are described in history, any more than 
life is explained by the development and func- 
tioning of a living organism. In biological 
science, life itself is not subsumed under the ru- 
bric of development, circumstance or functioning. 
The elementary cell has its "Eigengestaltsam- 
keit" which descriptive science simply takes as a 
fact. No more should Christianity with Christ 
as its center be identified with its development, 
the circumstances under which it took rise or its 
subsequent history. If it is out of time, it will 
go in time, and will deserve the mephistophelian 
sneer at earthly things : 

"Alles was entsteht 
1st werth dass es zu Grande geht." 

It could not inspire faith, it would lack its com- 
manding authority, it would require verification 
from the things of this world, instead of ruling 
at their hearts and center. Christ is in history 
what a priori elements are in individual experi- 
ence. When an un- Christian temper through 
lack of faith in this spiritual principle imperi- 
ously demands demonstration of the world's spir- 



RITSCHLIANISM 205 

itual events in terms of the seen, we reply effec- 
tively, "Faith is the substance of things hoped 
for, the evidence of things not seen" (Heb. 
xi, 1). This fact has made some historians re- 
tire into subjectivism; which leads to an individ- 
ualistic interpretation of Christianity and threat- 
ens to destroy both tradition and authority. 

The Ritschlian school has not been able to stem 
the tide of subjectivism, but has rather furthered 
it. In spite of Harnack's tribute to Ritschl as 
the one who saved Protestantism from this dis- 
integrating tendency, the process is still going 
on alarmingly. The popular mind comes to 
think of the Christian religion as a pious senti- 
ment, and experience of ethical enthusiasm and 
moral endeavor, as consecrated good-will in the 
service of mankind, as faith in the eternal right 
as the condition for self-realization in disciple- 
ship of the Christ, in the following of our innate 
religious instincts. The application of a nor- 
mative standard to a matter so purely private 
and individualistic is considered difficult and 
needless. Should no objective reality corre- 
spond to our deep-rooted religious experiences, 
we are nevertheless none the worse for indulging 
in these pious sentiments. They relax the ten- 
sion of life's struggle and relieve its grim real- 
ity. Metaphysics having been denied its place 
in religion, psychology tries to comfort us with 



206 AUTHORITY 

a last apologetic word in behalf of the retaining 
of Christianity. 

These ideas easily gain access to the minds of 
modern preachers. In a recent book, "The Dy- 
namic of Christianity," by E. M. Chapman, the 
following remark is made: "The ultimate 
source of authority is not an objective thing. It 
has never been fixed, codified, or finished I" 
Strange confusion of ideas in popular theology! 
A thing is not objective because it is not fixed, 
codified, or finished! From the nature of the 
case it cannot be finished in time, although it re- 
quires at least some form in which to express it- 
self in time. The New England pastor, how- 
ever, fortunately holds to what he calls "that 
chief practical charisma of the Spirit known as 
common sense," and believes "the conscience of 
Christendom, educated by the Bible, by the ex- 
perience of the Church, by the partial light issu- 
ing from the ethnic faiths and applied to specific 
cases of conduct by human reason acting with a 
full consciousness of its limitations, cannot go 
far wrong." 

More harmful are the reasonings which would 
have us discount and repudiate the agencies and 
manifestations of Christ, i. e., historic Chris- 
tianity, on the ground that they are not Christ 
Himself. This is very much like saying that the 
study of language, in any or all its forms, may 



RITSCHLIANISM 207 

be discarded because language is only the expres- 
sion of thought, not thought itself. And yet, 
without language thought would not be possible. 
Such a confusing opposition of Christ to Chris- 
tianity and Bible may be seen in the following 
passage of Dr. Jacobus, Dean of Hartford Semi- 
nary for religious workers: 

"It is upon Jesus Himself that the authority of life 
and all its religion rests to-day. There are those who 
say the authority of religion rests with the church, and 
that all we can hope to do as workers and teachers in 
religious things is to represent the church. But there 
are those who push this matter further back and say 
the authority of the church rests in the creeds, and 
that all we need to do is to keep the creeds intelligible 
to men. But there are still others who go further 
back and say the authority of the creeds rests with the 
Bible, and all that we have to do is to keep the Bible 
taught and preached to men. But you see this simply 
presses the question back one further step for its final 
answers, because, when we ask where rests the authority 
of the Bible, the only answer to this question is, it 
rests with Jesus Christ whom it contains." 

In this typical instance of popular fallacy the 
church, the creeds, and the Bible are the articu- 
late members of Christianity which the lecturer 
desires to push back and out of sight, to get to 
Christ as the final authority. As if Christ did 
not buttress Christianity! Why labor to find 



208 AUTHORITY 

Him different from, and elsewhere than where 
He admittedly and professedly is to be found? 
The Christian Church is Christ operating in his- 
tory, as reflected in the mind of men, "the collec- 
tive Christ." Christian experience as a witness 
is formulated in the creeds. Both may be tested 
by the perfect rule of faith and practice, the 
Bible, professedly God's book, the only perfect 
book as Christ is professedly the God-man, the 
only perfect man. The abuse of that judicial 
authority, of which every individual is a reposi- 
tory, in refusing to exercise it in agreement with 
the Church to which one owes allegiance, on the 
paltry plea that the experience of Christ is first, 
only serves to call in question the reality of one's 
share in such an experience. The vagueness of 
this position l certainly makes Christian experi- 
ence itself an undefined and meaningless term. 

As if for the benefit of this religious dean, the 
eminent Congregational scholar, Dr. Forsyth, 
writes in the Contemporary Review : 

"It is meaningless to say that Christianity is a life 
and therefore independent of dogma. The pearl of 
Christianity is a life lived with Christ in God. But that 
phrase teems with dogma. Christianity, moreover, was 
a life introduced under definite conditions of history 
and thought, and therefore it must have a dogma. It 
has always existed in such conditions. It is not a life 
in vacuo. Dogmatic nescience or hostility leaves us with 



RITSCHLIANISM 209 

little beyond reverie lost in the vague, or skepticism 
solvent and fatal." (Church, State, Dogma and Edu- 
cation.) 

Indeed, were Dr. Jacobus to formulate his 
position, though we do not look for theological 
inclinations in a school for religious workers, he 
would land in a species of theology, which the 
dean of Montauban, Emile Doumergue calls 
"Fideisme." In the essays "Les etapes du 
fideisme" and "Le dernier mot du fideisme" by 
Emile Doumergue we are told that Menegoz as- 
serts the existence of true faith, saving faith, 
without any knowledge of Christ, nay! that this 
true faith involves the decisive rejection of 
Christ. This religious agnosticism advances also 
to the position of a denial of the existence of 
God. It thereby approaches Poulin's proclama- 
tion: "True religion is to have none. The 
propagation of the religious idea is at the cost of 
the acceptance of the idea of the non-existence 
of God." (Poulin; "Religion and Socialism.") 
Against this sentimental liberalism we affirm with 
Liddon : 

"Religion to support itself, must rest consciously on 
its object: the intellectual apprehension of that object 
as true is an integral element of religion, in other words, 
religion is practically inseparable from theology." 
(Divinity of our Lord.) 



210 AUTHORITY 

It is the object of faith that deserves attention 
rather than the subject of experience, for the 
object is basal to the experience which it calls 
forth. The message of the Church should con- 
sist in proclaiming its belief rather than in tell- 
ing of its experience. The Church has in trust 
the preaching of the Gospel as the objective 
truth. Indeed, guardian of the truth as once de- 
livered unto the saints, its message, the truth, is 
the matter of most importance. And this is 
guaranteed neither by subjective experience nor 
by cui bono considerations. 

Dr. Francis Hall gives the following texts, 
bearing either directly or indirectly upon the 
grounds, nature and limits of the teaching au- 
thority of the church and her ministers : Matthew 
16:16-18; 18:17. Mark 16:15. Luke 10:16. 
John 14:16; 17:26; 16:13-15; 20:21. Acts 1:2, 
3; 2:1-4, 14-36; 6:2; 15:28; 16:4; 20:28. Ro- 
man 12:4-8. I Cor. 4:1-2; 11:23; 12:28, 29; 
15:1-3; 16:16. II Cor. 2:9-10; 4:1-3; 10:8. 
Gal. 1:1, 8-12; 2:6-11. Eph. 1:22-23; 3:2- 
11; 4:11-16. Col. 3-16. I Thess. V: 11, 12, 20, 
21. I Tim. 1:1, 3, 4; 3:15; 6:3-5, 20. II Tim. 
1 :13, 14 ; 2 :2 ; 4 :2. Titus 1 :l-3, 5, 7, 9, 13 ; 2 :15 ; 
3 :10, 11. Hebrews 13 :7, 17. I Pet. 5 :l-3. II 
Pet. 3:2. II John: 10 and Jude 3. The reading 
of these commissions to the Christian ministry is 
especially to be commended to our new brand of 



RITSCHLIANISM 211 

pastors, who devote themselves at the expense of 
their patent duties to philanthropic, sociological, 
and political activities. In thus deviating from 
their ministerial calling by the assumption of the 
work of social workers their inefficiency in the 
secular fold becomes manifest by the side of those 
trained along these lines. By putting a secular 
demand upon the clergy the preparatory train- 
ing for the ministry has actually undergone in 
most secularized institutions an important 
change. When in Princeton Theological Semi- 
nary similar demands were urged, the great 
Princeton Divine, Dr. Francis Landay Patton, 
fortunately vindicated the Seminary's curricu- 
lum as designed to prepare ministers "to rightly 
divide the Word." Indeed, it is a sad outlook 
for the ministerial profession if, under the influ- 
ence of liberal teachings, it is allowed to become 
a dabbling in the range of social activities, ethi- 
cized by such scant Christian teaching as still sur- 
vives in these circles. 



CHAPTER XXI 
SCIENCE AND FAITH 

No Weltanschauung is complete, no philosophy 
entirely satisfactory in every detail. The 
plumb-line of the finite intellect cannot measure 
the Infinitude in which it finds itself. In the 
end, therefore, we shall be brought before alter- 
natives, and we may well face them at the start. 
Ballard makes prominent the alternatives in- 
volved in Christian or non- Christian systems, 
and urges a choice of them in his able apologetic 
work, "The Miracles of Unbelief." 

There is, in fact, no more lamentable disposi- 
tion than the one which is content to hold by im- 
plication at least that there may be any number 
of truths; which is not merely content to hold 
that there are different aspects of truth, truth 
differently apprehended; but which holds op- 
posing views true under the claim that everybody 
is entitled to his own opinion. Though this be 
conceded in the abstract, to act upon it betrays 
an indifference to truth as such that kills all 
search for it and shows lack of confidence in it. 
The liberalism which proclaims "laisser aller," 
"laisser faire," as profound wisdom, reveals not 

219 



SCIENCE AND FAITH 213 

only an intellectual but a moral indifference to 
opinion. 

This temper, of course, does not obtain among 
trained, academic minds. Among these the pre- 
vailing lines of thought are different. Truth is 
held to be beyond our reach (in negative theolo- 
gies) ; or incomplete and inadequate (evolution- 
ary views) ; or again the limitations (not impos- 
sibility) of our knowledge is emphasized. Some 
dwell upon our inability to obtain objective certi- 
tude (subjectivism), and others hold that there 
are different kinds of truth (pluralism). The 
most insiduous and subtle mode of thought, how- 
ever, is that which enthrones need as the ultimate 
criterion of truth before which inquiry should be 
silent. We shall, therefore, treat of this at some 
length, since it involves the subjective stand- 
point of the other views, although the values de- 
termined by the satisfaction of need are held to 
correspond to objective reality. 

The very nomenclature of this mode of thought 
is suggestive in that it speaks of truth as "cor- 
responding to objective reality," instead of "re- 
sulting from objective, disclosed reality." Pro- 
fessor James tries with great ingenuity to argue 
the former, in which circumstance only the dis- 
pensing of its correspondence is needed in order 
to leave the freest scope to Pragmatism. He is 
not quite assured of his point, however. In a 



214 AUTHORITY 

foot-note on p. 17 in "The Meaning of Truth" 
he says : "One may easily get lost in verbal mys- 
teries about the difference between quality of 
feeling and feeling of quality, between receiving 
and reconstructing the knowledge of reality." 
It is evident that a disclosure of reality is always 
an affair of individual apprehension. 

If faith is the recognition of authority, exer- 
cised reasonably, not instinctively as led by feel- 
ing, then the question concerning the forms of 
authority to which we shall give assent must be 
settled by reason. Much more intricate, how- 
ever, does the question become, when we put the 
analogous inquiry concerning the relation of the 
sense of need to the true, real need of man as 
man. Orthodox Christianity has always dwelt 
upon the fact that religion, as a result of the 
soul's relation to God, is an individual affair, 
and therefore it has laid stress upon inner experi- 
ences and has exalted conscience and reason. 
But it has never gone so far as to make these hu- 
man experiences the final authority, because if re- 
ligious knowledge requires content occasioned by 
some object, much more does the religious senti- 
ment. Feeling is not creative; it is merely the 
capacity to receive impressions. There is, there- 
fore, no guarantee for the religious life, except on 
the basis of an acknowledged objective norm, 
in the recognition of God's truth. Apart from 



SCIENCE AND FAITH 215 

the impossibility of demonstrating the existence 
of things without, at least as perfectly as the 
reality of the psychical representations, an objec- 
tive norm is required to set in order our experi- 
ence as rational beings. History has shown hu- 
man judgment to be, as it is individually felt to 
be, inadequate, faulty and unreliable. Profes- 
sor James acknowledges this in his * 'Varieties 
of Religious Experience,' ' but only to invite re- 
turn to it, as residing in, or guided by utility, as 
this is apprehended by men. He says: 

"Origin in immediate intuition, origin in pontifical 
authority, origin in supernatural revelation, as by 
vision, hearing or unaccountable impression; origin in 
direct possession by a higher spirit, expressing itself in 
prophecy and warning; origin in automatic utterances 
generally, — these origins have been stock warrants for 
the truth of one opinion after another which we find 
represented in religious history. The medical mate- 
rialists are therefore only so many belated dogmatists 
neatly turning the tables on their predecessors by using 
the criterion of origin in a destructive instead of an 
accreditive way." 

And again: 

"Not its origin, but the way in which it works on the 
whole, is Dr. Maudsley's final test of belief. This is 
our own empiricist criterion, and this criterion the stout- 
est insisters on supernatural origin have also been 



216 AUTHORITY 

forced to use in the end." (H. Maudsley, "Natural 
Causes and Supernatural Seemings.") 

This is exactly what we do not understand by 
the final authority, an assent to which is faith. 
Faith is not born of things seen, authority not 
recognized after we have seen how expedient its 
commands are. Those who insist on super- 
natural origin, are forced to use for verification in 
apologetic argument the same world-field in time 
and to abide by the criterion "the way in which it 
works on the whole." But the convictions were 
not derived from the survey, not brought about 
by argument. It is a contradiction in terms to 
establish one's own authority. After assent has 
been given, we cannot further accredit the au- 
thority upon which it rests. All we can do is to 
find corroboration for the reasonableness of our 
act of faith. (Cf. "Is Proverbs Utilitarian?" 
In the January Number of the Bibliotheca 
Sacra, 1907.) 

The suggestive, plain title of Dr. Maudsley's 
essay reduces the supernatural to seemings, and 
proclaims the natural only as cause. It goes 
without saying that on this presupposition no 
other guarantee is left. But — as we have ob- 
served — the existence of the natural world is no 
more proved than is the reality of the represen- 
tations of our psychic life. As Professor Ru- 



SCIENCE AND FAITH 217 

dolph Eucken observes in "Das Wesen der Re- 
ligion" (p. 5) : "To religion surely belongs the 
reality of another world, above the one we know 
through sensuous experience. For an imma- 
nent religion, that vague and inadequate notion 
which defies this world, is a pitiful contradic- 
tion." The logical application of this, both to 
the sphere of inner experiences and the world of 
outer experiences, is not only analogical, but true 
to the experiences themselves. Dr. H. Visscher, 
in urging this in an inaugural address, "De 
oorspong der Religie," before the University of 
Utrecht, 1904, quotes his colleague Ziehen as fol- 
lows: "Shall we indeed speak soon, not of a tree, 
but of a tree-sensation, or even some specific part 
of the tree-sensation? Not at all. Our words 
denote not things, but sensations and ideas and 
these complexes of experiences are to be taken 
as real." 

But we wish further to call attention in Pro- 
fessor James' statement to the view concerning 
the relation of origin to authority. Professor 
James takes little account of the origin of that 
which claims authority. Simply because he does 
not recognize its truly a priori dictum, he in- 
clines toward the seeming causes which discount 
supernatural causes, and discards, in much the 
same way as medical materialists, the question of 
origin. (Origin employed here in the sense of 



218 AUTHORITY 

source, not as meaning the procedure of genetic 
appearance.) But on such presuppositions, it is 
difficult to come to any true appreciation of 
faith, which requires independent or final au- 
thority to be acknowledged, not proved. After 
all the facts are in, from a posteriori reflection 
upon the thought, act, or experience, we cannot 
determine the faith required before the issues. 
Authority always requires as a priori, what 
James will recognize only as a posteriori and es- 
timates with a bias on the basis of its results 
upon things without us. In his "Will to Be- 
lieve" Professor James remarks: 

"No concrete test of what is really true has ever been 
agreed upon. Some make the criterion external to the 
moment of perception, putting it either in revelation, 
the consensus gentium, the instincts of the heart, of the 
systematized experience of the race. Others make the 
perceptive moment its own test, — Descartes, for in- 
stance, with his clear and distinct ideas guaranteed by 
the veracity of God ; Reid with his 'common-sense' ; and 
Kant with his forms of synthetic judgment, a priori. 
The inconceivability of the opposite ; the capacity to be 
verified by sense; the possession of complete organic 
unity or self-relation, realized when a thing is its own 
other, — our standards which, in turn, have been used." 

Instead of interpreting these facts as accredi- 
ted to the circumstance that these are attempts 
to explain and justify the striking creditude 



SCIENCE AND FAITH 219 

wherewith first truth was apprehended and au- 
thority recognized, James insists that "the intel- 
lect, even with truth directly in its grasp, may 
have no infallible signal for knowing whether it 
be true or no. Here is the point at which the dis- 
cussion has always halted, or — shall we say — 
really begun. Those whose faith leans upon the 
verdicts of reason and conscience, treating them 
as essentially veracious, demand the infallibility 
of Absolute truth to back them. 

We believe that truth announces itself as much 
in the forms of lif e we find, or rather as it finds 
us in the forms of life. Truth is dogmatic; it has 
authority and inspires faith. This is truth as we 
see it, of course. Specific forms which represent 
truth to us may not do so from another angle, 
and certainly not to another individual. Yet 
truth recognized as such carries its own verifica- 
tion. We have already anticipated the objec- 
tion that our metaphysical bias runs into theoretic 
abstraction. But we believe that we are free 
from the charge, inasmuch as we do not identify 
truth with the specific forms in which it manifests 
itself to different individuals at different times, 
i. e., with reality, knowing that it is larger than 
any temporal form. Yet, in these forms we 
must find the truth as we can experience it. On 
strictly psychological grounds, we know that un- 
mediated faith is a chimera. 



220 AUTHORITY 

As Professor Bavinck well says in his Stone 
Lectures on "Philosophy of Revelation" (p. 
82): 

"In the knowledge of the truth lies the end of its rev- 
elation ; reality is an instrument to enable us to find the 
truth; reality is intended to become truth in our con- 
sciousness and in our experience. Reality, therefore, 
does not offer us in the truth a mere copy of itself, so 
that the world, as pragmatism objects, would be du- 
plicated. In the truth, reality arises to a higher mode 
of existence ; having first lain in darkness, it now walks 
in the light ; having once been a riddle, it now finds its 
solution; not understood at the beginning, it is now 
'declared.' So the truth obtains an independent value 
of its own. Its standard does not lie in its usefulness 
for life, for, if usefulness were the criterion of truth, 
then perfect unanimity ought to prevail in regard to 
usefulness, and life itself ought to be a value not sub- 
ject to fluctuation. But in regard to life, what counts 
is not merely existence, or pleasure, or intensity, but 
first of all content and quality. And it is precisely by 
truth that this content and quality are determined. 
The truth is of more value than empirical life. Christ 
sacrificed his life for it. None the less, by doing so he 
regained his life. Truth is worth more than reality; 
it belongs to that higher order of things in which physis, 
and gnosis, and ethos are reconciled, and in which a true 
philosophy gives full satisfaction both to the demands 
of the intellect and to the needs of the heart." 



CHAPTER XXII 

PRAGMATISM SUBVERSIVE OF 
AUTHORITY 

Professor James makes in the dialogue, with 
which "The Meaning of Truth" closes, the Prag- 
matist dispense with this hybrid term truth. 

"It seems to me that what knowledge knows is the 
fact itself, the event or whatever the reality may be. 
Where you see three distinct entities in the field, the 
reality, the knowing, and the truth, I see only two. 
Moreover, I can see what each of my two entities is 
known^as, but when I ask myself what your third entity, 
the truth, is known-as, I can find nothing distinct from 
the reality on the one hand, and the ways in which it 
may be known on the other. Are you not probably mis- 
led by common language, which has found it conven- 
ient to introduce a hybrid name, meaning sometimes a 
kind of knowing and sometimes a reality known, to 
apply to either of these things interchangeably? And 
has philosophy anything to gain by perpetuating and 
consecrating the ambiguity? If you call the object of 
knowledge 'reality,' and call the manner of its being 
cognized 'truth,' cognized moreover on particular occa- 
sions, and variously, by particular human beings who 
have their various businesses with it, and if you hold 

221 



222 AUTHORITY 

consistently to the nomenclature, it seems to me that 
you escape all sorts of trouble." 

Indeed! Professor James does well to dis- 
pense with that "hybrid name" truth, if, as on 
pragmatic basis, there is no normative standard 
left. H. Heath Bawden hails this new philoso- 
phy with great acclaim. He declares in "The 
Principles of Pragmatism": "The new philoso- 
phy is a pragmatic idealism. Its method is at 
once intrinsic or immanent, and organic or func- 
tional" (p. 44). He goes on to say that he 
means "by saying that its method is immanent 
that it must be interpreted from within. We 
find ourselves in mid-stream of the Niagara of 
experience and may define what it is only by 
working back and forth within the current. We 
don't know where we're going, but we're on the 
way." Yes! on the way, admittedly glorying in 
the ignorance of the course which uncontrolled 
sovereign experience takes. "Everything that 
we experience is equally real" (p. 55). The 
compass is thrown overboard, truth is functional, 
to be, used, nay to be made and subsequently dis- 
carded. "Truth is a form of value : its value lies 
in its ability to mediate other values" (p. 216) 
floating in a Niagara of experience. "Truth in- 
volves interaction of means and ends, and since 
experience is an ever expanding, the standard of 



PRAGMATISM SUBVERSIVE 223 

what is true or adequate grows with this expand- 
ing life. It is not a question of truth, but of 
truths, not of validity but of specific validities. 
There is no single criterion of truth, because there 
is no single truth" (p. 204). The formal logi- 
cians have maintained that the validity of 
thought lies in its reference. Heath Bawden in- 
forms us that "Truth or falsity involves compari- 
son of two or more judgments. A judgment 
becomes true or false only when reflectively scru- 
tinized and evaluated from the standpoint of a 
new judgment." In this pragmatic movement 
as taken up by its average advocates, one cannot 
help being impressed by the boastful attitude 
with which they present truisms as important new 
discoveries to do away with the traditional views, 
the meaning of which they fail to understand by 
lack of philosophic insight. In these formulae, 
convictions and judgments which have controlled 
the thought of the ages and are still the mainstay 
of the best minds and judgments, is compressed 
more valuable experience than the noisy superfi- 
cial clamorings of the new-fangled truths an- 
nounce. New thought emphasizes discrepancies 
in life's situations, toys with the unseen, con- 
trasts logic and life, ridicules the static, the law, 
the authority which demands submission. It in- 
sists: "tant de tetes, tant d'avis," and one is as 
good as another. Its democracy appeals to the 



224 AUTHORITY 

crowd by bringing everything exalted within 
reach of the impious hand. There is no high or 
low, all is a matter of experience, no standard 
obtains. The soldier's wish has come true; in 
philosophy as in morals. Pragmatism is 

"Somewheres east of Suez 

Where the best is like the worst, 
Where there aren't no Ten Commandments, 
An' a man can raise a thirst." 

Of course, with Professor James there are 
"leadings," and Professor Dewey's "Immediate 
Empirisism" would caution in the use to be made 
of his statement that the failure with most men 
is to set up a standard "authoritatively instead of 
experimentally." For this eminent scholar, to 
whom the pragmatists will now look as their 
leader, is a greater philosopher than the illustri- 
ous Harvard psychologist, and realizes also the 
import of Kant's words, that in itself doubt and 
criticism is not a permanent resting place for hu- 
man reason. Its justification is relative, and its 
function transitional. Still, in this movement 
"Human arbitrariness has driven divine necessity 
from scientific logic, as James well declares in 
"Pragmatism" (p. 57). Though James is per- 
haps right in maintaining that he means to ac- 
knowledge in his system an objective correspond- 



PRAGMATISM SUBVERSIVE 225 

ence, by refusing this corresponding reality ac- 
knowledgment as causal ground which involves a 
normative, regulative character for experience, he 
can hardly defend this claim on metaphysical 
grounds. However, James confessedly always 
disliked the speculative cobwebs of metaphysics. 
They restrict life's free flow upon which prag- 
matism insists. Kant slighted the objective, 
normative element of the supernatural similarly, 
when he declared in "Kritik der Urteilskraf t" : 



"From nature as object of our senses we have no 
ground for the belief that things serve one another as 
means to ends, and nature only by this causality becomes 
sufficiently intelligible." And "Thus the idea of teleol- 
ogy in nature must be a necessary postulate for human 
judgment, a subjective principle of judgment in our 
reason therefore, which as regulative (not constitutive) 
is valid as absolutely for human judgment, as if it 
were an objective principle." 

("Dass aber Dinge der Natur einander als Mittel zu 
Zwecken dienen und ihre Moglichkeit selbt nur durch 
diese Art von Causalitat hinreichend verstandlich sei, 
dazu haben wir gar keinen Grund in der allgemeinen 
Idee der Natur als Inbegriffs der Gegenstande der 
Sinne." (V § 61.) " So wird der Begriff der Zweck- 
massigkeit der Natur in ihren produkten ein fur die 
menschliche Urteilskraft in Ansehung der Natur not- 
wendiger Begriff sein, also ein subjectives Princip der 
Vernunft fur die Urteilskraft, welches als regulativ 



226 AUTHORITY 

[nicht constitutiv] gilt, alsob es sein objectives Princip 
ware.") 



The view that the end in nature may be 
regulative, but not constitutive, is contradictory, 
for only then is there a rule when it is truly the 
expression of nature. It deserves notice that 
Kant recognizes the force of the regulative ele- 
ment, but slights this by declaring it subjective 
in the interest of his mechanical explanation of 
nature. His aim is "to explain all products and 
events of nature, even those most fraught with 
design, as far as possible in a mechanical way." 
("alle Produkte and Ereignisse der Natur, 
selbst die Zweckmassigsten so weit mechanisch 
zu erklaren, als es nur immer in unserm Vermo- 
gen stent.") (378.) Pragmatism argues a "cor- 
respondence," so as not to lack objectivity, but 
refuses to acknowledge this reality as causal or 
constitutive, for this would involve regulative 
norm. Thus, however, cannot be maintained 
real objectivity. The query rises: Why should 
there be any correspondence? This is the most 
pertinent question against James's defense of 
pragmatism, especially since the most he will al- 
low is that "We believe our precepts are pos- 
sessed in common." Subtle psychological so- 
phistry about the "quality of feeling" and "feel- 
ing of quality" cannot delude our inner deliver- 



PRAGMATISM SUBVERSIVE 227 

ance, even by the scholar whose ingenious stream- 
theory tried to dispense with the soul, and whose 
questioning, "Does consciousness exist?" con- 
cludes with the declaration of his belief that con- 
sciousness is but "the faint rumor left behind the 
disappearing 'soul' upon the air of philosophy." 
Yet, the very same scholar accredited data of 
spiritualistic seances with the warmth of convic- 
tion. 

In the "Essays philosophical and psychologi- 
cal in honor of William James by his colleagues 
at Columbia" is a helpful suggestion in regard to 
objectivity in the essay "The New Realism" by 
George Fullerton. Professor Fullerton re- 
marks (p. 49) : 

"They have only to distinguish clearly between the 
objective order itself and their assumed non-phenome- 
nal entity, and to use that order as a framework for 
the ordering of experience as a whole. If they do this 
they are doing what is done in common life and in sci- 
ence — they are distinguishing between the existence of 
things and our perception of them. Without this dis- 
tinction, we should, indeed, find it hard to get on." 

On pp. 33 and 35 he says : 

"In answer to the idealistic contention, that there is 
no experience in the world where there is no sensation, 
I advance, not a denial, but a complementary statement. 



228 AUTHORITY 

It is this: There is no sensation, that can be recog- 
nized as such, where there is no experience of the world. 
What is a sensation? The word is surely not one to 
be used at random. No one thinks of employing it as a 
mere name for anything and everything. When we 
imagine a tree or a house, we do not admit that we are 
concerned with sensations. How can we distinguish be- 
tween sensations and such experiences as these? But 
one answer to this question can be given. We find in 
experience an objective order of phenomena. No one 
who has not senses finds it of course. The phenomena 
that stand in the objective order are revealed, i.e., that 
they may be referred to the sense of someone, and in, so 
far, they are his perception of the objective order, the 
man is recognized as experiencing sensations. But, al- 
though we constantly refer phenomena to our senses, 
this is not our only way of treating them. We relate 
them to each other directly, abstracting from the rela- 
tion to sense, and in so far we recognize them as having 
their place in an objective order. As so considered the 
phenomena in question are not sensations ; they are 
qualities of things. That phenomena may have this 
double relation is evident from the fact one set of sci- 
ences occupies itself with them in one relation, and an- 
other busies itself with them as standing in the other. 
We cannot repudiate all these sciences. A color merely 
imagined or seen in a dream cannot be treated by phys- 
ical science as in any sense the property of a thing; it 
cannot be regarded by psychology as a sensation. He 
who dwells upon sense-organs, nerves, and messages, 
gives a meaning to the word sensation; if he subse- 



PRAGMATISM SUBVERSIVE 229 

quently discards this physiological apparatus or subli- 
mates it into a mere 'projection,' he ought to discard 
with it all the meaning he has gained, and ought, in jus- 
tice, to abandon the word. If, by bad luck, he incon- 
sistently holds on to it he becomes an idealist, a sub- 
jectivist." 

This is to corroborate what Jevons states in 
"Lessons in Logic" (p. 11) : "We cannot sup- 
pose, and there is no reason to suppose, that by 
the constitution of the mind we are obliged to 
think of things differently from the manner in 
which they are." Logic then, holds still good in 
spite of the vehement denunciations of the mod- 
ern mind. Perhaps sometimes speculative 
flights have been attempted without a strict ob- 
servation of the facts of life. Practical claims 
might have been occasionally discarded for theo- 
retic rules, dogma too exclusively conceived as 
logical formulation or theory, but it all grew out 
of life, and regarding life, it was in touch with 
it, not to stifle it, but to enrich it in leading it 
out constitutively in its regulations. How pal- 
try many of these truisms of vital life-interpre- 
tations sound as set over against imaginary tra- 
ditional formalism may appear from quoting 
f. i. the felicitous remarks of Scott Holland in 
"Logic and Life": 

"Faith is not made by argument. It seeks, indeed, 



230 AUTHORITY 

for a rational solution of life's mysteries ; it grows 
through gaining hold of them ; 'The depth said, it is not 
in me.' Not from things without, but from the heart 
within, cometh wisdom ; there, in the inner places of the 
soul, in the secret will with which a man fears the Lord, 
and departs from evil, is the true place of spiritual un- 
derstanding. (Preface.) 

"Reason is regarded, not in its isolated character, as 
an engine with which every man starts equipped, ca- 
pable of doing a certain job whenever required, with a 
definite and certain mode of action ; but it is taken as a 
living and pliable process by and in which man brings 
himself into rational and intelligent relations with his 
surroundings, with his experience. Reason is the 
slowly formed power of harmonizing the world of facts ; 
and its justification lies, not in its deductive certainty 
as in its capacity to advance. It proves its trustwor- 
thiness by its power to grow. Reason moves towards 
its place, its fulfillment, so far as it settles itself into 
responsive agreement with the facts covered by its ac- 
tivity. We have to do, more or less, with the actual 
construction and nature of the reasoning organ itself. 
This construction is alive, and every instant sees it 
change : it is no isolated faculty where working can con- 
tinue, or be watched 'in vacuo,' as we can watch the 
movement of a machine even when it has no material to 
work upon. Rather is it to be held in unbroken con- 
nection with the facts on which it works, for only in re- 
lation to them is its success, its truths, obvious, or veri- 
fiable or intelligible. Everything depends on the char- 
acter of the facts before him, and on the nature of his 



PRAGMATISM SUBVERSIVE 231 

main experiences. The excellence of a piece of reason- 
ing lies simply in its adaptive facility, in the response 
it evokes between those particular new impressions and 
the mass of older and habitual experiments. Change 
the facts, or the experience, and its excellence disap- 
pears, — it becomes unintelligible. Only in intimate and 
undivided communion with the facts which they express, 
have the announcements of the reason, on any field of 
knowledge, any intelligible value; and no one therefore, 
who does not live, and move, and have his being, in con- 
stant intercourse with the spirit life can enter into the 
deep necessities of its laws. I am, of necessity, blind 
to the force of argument and judgment, as long as I 
have no corresponding experience, — as long as that 
body of fact which they make explicable remains to me 
unverified and unexplored. The reason in man is hu- 
man ; that is all we mean. It is under a man's impulse 
that it argues and discusses ; it is part and parcel of his 
corporate and complex existence. The whole long chain 
of its syllogisms is never mechanical; it is alive along 
all its length; and feels at every joining the throbbing 
currents of his moving life." 

It may seem strange that — with the exception 
of Professor James — by the pragmatists so little 
attention has been given to the psychology of 
faith, though they are intent on undermining 
faith in all its forms. And Professor James, who 
brings abundant psychological insight to the 
statement of the pragmatic philosophy, unfor- 
tunately reaches forth most aggressively in its 



232 AUTHORITY 

metaphysical formulations, a discipline which he 
confessedly dislikes. This circumstance brings 
the psychologist under the criticism of his col- 
league Royce, who urges rightly that in pragma- 
tism the importance of the syllogism is over- 
looked and its nature and the nature of deduc- 
tive reason not psychologically understood. 
(Compare the author's "The American philoso- 
phy Pragmatism.") It is admitted that accord- 
ing as objective recognition is more clear and un- 
questioned, the stronger our will-power is as- 
serted, our determination surer. Faith therefore 
is also an economic help in life, a veritable assur- 
ance. Forsooth, no balancing mind, no reflective 
dreamer like Hamlet does the deed. In this 
psychological oversight, by refusing objective 
recognition as guarantee for its action, Pragma- 
tism defeats its own end of action. Faith and 
Authority are also supreme in this. 



CHAPTER XXIII 
SUBJECTIVISM AND TRUTH 

Professor Rudolf Eucken, in his "Hauptpro- 
bleme der Religionsphilosophie der Gegenwart," 
remarks : 

"The mental life is simply incomprehensible and 
could never exercise power with us, if it had not inde- 
pendent reality apart from man, if the life which ap- 
pears in it did not have reality and were not truly re- 
lated. Only a real life-whole is capable of evoking the 
activities of our inner life (p. 16). . . . We may 
understand quite different things by the true and the 
good, but none of us would ever strive for them, did we 
not think of them as superior to human conditions and 
opinions, as representative of another timeless order of 
things. The more we comprehend the mental life as a 
whole and understand it as another phase of reality, the 
clearer it becomes that in it we see an independent world 
of eternal truth appear which gives foundation to the 
change of temporal happenings and human life (p. 
54). . . . That its metaphysical elements prove 
to be ethical and the ethical metaphysical, is the char- 
acteristic greatness and lasting dynamic of Christian- 
ity; former times often make it onesidedly metaphysi- 
cal; we of the modern age should avoid turning it into 
a mere ethics " (p. 89). 

333 



234 AUTHORITY 

An illustration of the use of authority in the 
sense of witness to objective fact may be seen in 
a clause of the last will and testament of the late 
Rev. John Bampton, specifying the purpose of 
the now famous Bampton lectures : 

"Also I direct and appoint, that the eight Divinity 
Lecturer Sermons shall be preached upon either of the 
following subjects — to confirm and establish the Chris- 
tian Faith, and to confute all heretics and schismatics 
— upon the Divine authority of holy Scriptures — upon 
the authority of the writings of the primitive Fathers, 
as to the faith and practice of the primitive Church — 
upon the Divinity of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ 
— upon the Divinity of the Holy Ghost — upon the Ar- 
ticles of the Christian Faith, as comprehended in the 
Apostles' and Nicene Creeds." 

From this will it clearly appears that authority 
is lifted above questionings and inquiries; but 
justification is sought for it in order to guarantee 
the rational exercise of faith. The objective 
witnesses are called upon to justify the authority 
which is acknowledged. So; those in whom espe- 
cially resides the objective witness to facts, are 
to render service by bringing about intellectual 
verification of faith. It is the recognition in 
Anselm's profound maxim: "Credo ut intelli- 
gam," — of the ut intelligam as well as of the 
credo, — expressed in that other famous saying of 



SUBJECTIVISM AND TRUTH 235 

his: "fides quaerit intellectam." In faith, in the 
recognition of authority, the will is involved ; yet, 
not the bare will of abstraction according to the 
former rigid division of our tripartite nature. 
It is an intelligent will which is to operate under 
proper and proportionate sentiment. As Dr. 
W. Benton Greene, Jr., well said in an address 
delivered before a conference at Princeton: 

"There is no knowledge of the heart. Feeling can 
give knowledge no more than can excitement. Pro- 
fessor Bowen said, 'Feeling is a state of mind consequent 
on the reception of some idea.' Again the head and the 
heart are not in opposition. They are not, as often 
represented, rival faculties. Man is not a bunch of 
separate activities. He is an indivisible unit." 

We cannot fruitfully consider will, intellect, 
or feeling separately, neither should we leave 
them too much to abstract consideration, but 
their bearings should be found, as they function, 
in the concreteness of human life. In life we 
find man exercising conjointly his volitional, 
emotional, and intellectual nature. His whole 
personality comes to play on the scenes of his 
life under specific forms to which he responds 
and upon which he reacts in his own, personal 
way, thus forming a character with its corre- 
sponding "Weltanschauung." Fichte was right 
in saying that a man may be known from his phi- 



236 AUTHORITY 

losophy, as was also the author of Proverbs when 
he said (IV. 23) : "Keep thy heart with all dili- 
gence; for out of it are the issues of life." 

Are then the forms of authoritative truth on 
which faith is exercised, such as to warrant the 
act, are they to be considered final? We must 
answer, No, unless they carry in themselves the 
intrinsic power of the truth, unless they are 
manifestations of God ; no derived authority will 
endure. This, however, is exactly what religion 
is built on and upon which it rests, as Professor 
T. Cannegieter has said: u De taak en methode 
der wijsbegeerte van den Godsdienst" p. 129. 

"Through our indivisible, spiritual nature, we are in 
personal, direct relation with God. He gives us — He 
only knows how — the impression of His Presence and 
relation to us. But it follows from this, that when the 
question is raised as to the reality of these experiences, 
it never devolves upon the science of religion to prove the 
existence of God. For the religious man whose experi- 
ences are real. For him God is the deepest reality. 
Out of this blossoms forth his religion. The first point 
in all religion is God, who is known, because he revealed 
Himself. Whoever tries to explain religion without 
this presupposition destroys it. In this one primum 
all is contained. For when God reveals Himself to the 
soul, then He is known in His absoluteness as the In- 
finite, who is the ground of all finite things. And every- 
thing finite is considered as belonging to Him only. 



SUBJECTIVISM AND TRUTH 237 

God revealing Himself is the primordial source of all 
religion. When did this revelation begin? It coin- 
cides with creation, it began when man commenced his 
psychic life equipped for the reception of this revela- 
tion. As the eye is teleologically fitted for the recep- 
tion of light, so is the soul of man fitted for the recep- 
tion of God. 

See also his interesting sketch: "De samen- 
hang van het objectieve en het subjectieve in de 
dogmatiek." 

When Leopold Monod observes in "Le pro- 
bleme de l'autorite": "I insist that no such re- 
gime is of divine origin," he practically prede- 
termines not to recognize any final authority, 
and thus his conception of the revelation of truth 
must needs be one that is not only incomplete, 
but also mixed with error, for it means consist- 
ently that there is no revealed truth. Yet he 
presumes to discuss seriously just this point: 
"We do not dispute the fact of authority in hu- 
man life, nor its relative right, but the absolute 
right of authority. Are there authorities, or is 
there an authority, which commands us in abso- 
lute fashion, so that to withhold from it our 
thought and action would be to fail in our first 
duty? Where is this authority? Where speci- 
fically for the Christian is the authority which he 
may not deny without ceasing by the very act to 
be a Christian?" 



238 AUTHORITY 

This method necessarily keeps M. Monod in 
the sphere of relativity, for he has precluded the 
serious admission of any final authority or abso- 
lute truth. The question concerns the recogni- 
tion of authority, the receiving of the documenta- 
tion of God's revelation, not the establishment of 
it. To argue authority into being, would require 
a regress ad infinitum. And whenever, or in 
whatever field, such an attempt is made, it is evi- 
dent that the recognition of authority has already 
been refused, that the exercise of faith has been 
shut out. The confusion of these two totally dif- 
ferent procedures is in the air and is widespread. 
It seems to be thought a reasonable procedure 
to-day in many quarters to hold that established 
authority, in the exercise of its function, be it re- 
ligious or civil, must give an account of itself 
even to those over whom it rightfully holds claim. 
This, however, is a hopelessly confusing princi- 
ple, and is never acted upon in practice, neither 
indeed could it be. It would require a judge in 
office to ask for jurisdiction, an officiating priest 
to request his parishioners to grant him authority 
for his ministry. It would require approval by 
the people of the law that is in force over them, 
and vindication of the Bible while appeal is made 
to it. There is a normative, objective standard 
of truth. All the varied forms of truth, how- 
ever, differently perceived, admit of being 



SUBJECTIVISM AND TRUTH 239 

brought into comparison, inasmuch as all these 
forms go back to one source, i. e., to human na- 
ture, which is always essentially the same. 

Dr. Charles Tyler Olmstead, Bishop of the di- 
ocese of Central New York, commending an 
article of the Reverend Burnett T. Stafford in 
the Bibliotheca Sacra, April, 1907, remarks 
truly: 

"It is certain as anything can be that there is an 
immovable substratum of truth underlying every Divine 
manifestation, which the human mind may elucidate and 
view from different points, but can never change. And 
it is so that the Christian life and civilization are built 
up on the unchangeable facts of the Incarnate Life of 
the Son of God. We may mediate on those facts and 
see more and more of their wondrous significance, now 
emphasizing one feature and now another; but to deny 
their reality and call that 'spiritual interpretation' is 
to put our vain fancies in the place of God's revelation, 
and to trick out our belief with a deceptive appearance 
of faith. It will not do. It destroys the foundations, 
and leaves us a mere human philosophy in the place of 
divine religion. No such philosophy ever has been, or 
ever will be, able to withstand the active resistance and 
antagonism of human selfishness." 

Subjectivism tends to discredit the normative 
element in authority, because its objective aspect, 
its metaphysical implication, recedes before the 
claim of subjective interpretation. This finds 



240 AUTHORITY 

illustration in a recent volume by Dr. D. W. 
Forrest entitled, "The Authority of Christ." 
The author endeavors to enforce Christ's au- 
thority by enlarging upon the importance of the 
work of the Holy Spirit. It is a peculiar mode 
of treatment to affirm at the start: "It appears 
to me that those who maintain a genuine histori- 
cal Incarnation of the Son of God have not 
always sufficiently recognized the limitations in- 
herent in an Incarnate life, nor how vital is the 
illumination of the Spirit operating through the 
best activities of men's minds and hearts, for the 
discovery of what Christ's authoritative message 
really is." Dr. Forrest certainly chooses a 
rather illogical way when he seeks to persuade us 
of the authority of Christ by declaring His limi- 
tations according to the kenotic theory to which 
he adheres, and then subsequently endeavors to 
establish Christ's authority by appealing to the 
activity of the Holy Spirit. He thus comes into 
line with the current subjective interpretations 
of Christianity, leaving us without guarantee 
that the "Zeitgeist" will not assert itself as 
"Heiliger Geist," when he discards "an objective 
standard of divine commands, unbounded by any 
fluctuations or vicissitudes of human thought and 
life." He says again: "What security is there 
that mankind will not some day universally re- 
nounce the Gospel of Christ? Is it merely that 



SUBJECTIVISM AND TRUTH 241 

the Church claims to have a commission to de- 
clare, "This is the revealed truth?" Certainly 
not. A claim is nothing unless it can justify it- 
self to thef best judgment of men; and the higher 
it is the more eagerly will its credentials be scru- 
tinized. Therefore in the end the one guarantee 
for the perpetuity of Christianity in the world 
is its adaptation to human nature" (p. 429). 

If the impossible, hypothetical event sug- 
gested by Dr. Forrest should happen, and man- 
kind should universally renounce the Gospel of 
Christ, the Gospel none the less would still be 
true. Truth does not derive its intrinsic, ob- 
jective authority either from the needs of human 
nature or from its appreciation by human nature. 
Its reception by mankind depends on this sense 
of need, but to elevate this manward aspect of 
truth into its criterion is pure pragmatism. The 
question in point Dr. Forrest dismisses abruptly. 
The Church does claim to be commissioned to de- 
clare a revealed truth. For Dr. Forrest to deny 
these claims because they do not meet the cri- 
terion which he proposes (though we need hardly 
mention that in this revealed truth the deepest 
needs of the human heart are met) — is to refuse 
assent to objective truth, because it does not find 
its way to the minds which he sets up as judges. 
With some exaggeration of this statement we 
might say: Truth which is not popular is a con- 



242 AUTHORITY 

tradiction in terms. Such a saying, however, 
would be a most painful mockery of the world's 
heroic martyrs who have fallen as witnesses to 
truth, and even of Him who said: "To this end 
was I born, and for this cause came I into the 
world, that I should! bear witness unto the truth," 
and who added: "Everyone that is of the truth 
heareth my voice" (John xviii. 38), although 
there were many who did not hear. 

This contention that the claims of Christianity 
must justify themselves to the individuals who 
sit in judgment upon them, involves the moral 
question of beliefs as expressed in Christ's signifi- 
cant addition. This subjective attitude as pre- 
requisite for the reception of truth, Dr. Forrest 
makes practically the whole of Christianity and 
then elaborates the activity of the Holy Spirit by 
identifying His work essentially with the best 
judgment of men, — a procedure which runs 
either into humanitarianism or into pantheism. 
He who discusses the authority of Christ should 
remember that, if mankind derives its final au- 
thority from its own nature, it acts on its own 
authority, and further, that though the admission 
of truth to the hearts of men is subjectively con- 
ditioned, this circumstance does not decide the 
question concerning the nature of truth itself. 
"God is His own interpreter and He will make 
it plain." 



SUBJECTIVISM AND TRUTH 243 

But again Dr. Forrest says (p. 428) : "We re- 
pudiate the attempt to impose upon us the 
ecclesiastical order of patristic or mediaeval 
times, and claim the right in Christ's service to 
be true to ourselves and to our appointed place." 
The question, however, is not whether systems 
should be imposed upon those who do not find 
themselves satisfied in the traditional creed of 
Christianity. This would make hypocrites, not 
Christians. Those of "the ecclesiastical order of 
patristic or mediaeval times" were the first to af- 
firm that human agencies cannot make Chris- 
tians. 

The issue is one which Dr. Forrest either 
evades or does not perceive, namely, whether 
simply being true to ourselves constitutes being a 
Christian, or whether specific and unique char- 
acteristics belong to Christianity and the Chris- 
tian Church. We must first determine the na- 
ture of Christianity and then answer the ques- 
tion. What constitutes a Christian? Scholars 
professedly still turn to the Christ as the source 
and center of Christianity, though the ethnic 
faiths have occasionally been called upon for elu- 
cidation, because of a widely current emphasis on 
human nature. In discussing Loisy's books, 
"L'Evangile et l'Eglise" and "Autour d'un 
petit livre," Dr. Forrest quite naturally inclines 
towards Abbe Loisy's subjectivism, but objects to 



244 AUTHORITY 

what critics consider Loisy's strongest point, the 
defense of historic Christianity as the natural and 
therefore legitimate form by means of which the 
Church perpetuates itself, declaring that "His- 
tory knows no instance of religion without a 
cult." 



CHAPTER XXIV 

NEEDS AND UTILITY 

There is a fallacious use made of the phrase: 
"Natura exigit, imperat Deus" — what nature de- 
mands, God enjoins. This has been interpreted 
to mean that man's deepest needs are God's high- 
est laws. Hooker tries to safeguard this view by 
conditional clauses against too free interpreta- 
tion. He says in his "Ecclesiastical Polity": 

"The general and perpetual voice of men is as the 
sentence of God himself. For that which all men have 
at all time learned, nature herself must needs have 
taught, and God being the author of nature, her voice 
is but his instrument." (I. VIII. 3.) 

Also (I. x. 1. 8.) 

"Two foundations there are which bear up public so- 
cieties: the one a natural inclination, whereby all men 
desire sociable life and fellowship; the other an order 
expressly or secretly agreed upon touching the manner 
of their union in living together . . . the lawful 
power of making laws to command whole political socie- 
ties of men belongeth so properly unto the same entire 
societies, that for any prince or potentate of what kind 

245 



246 AUTHORITY 

soever on earth to exercise the same of himself, and not 
either by express commission immediately, personally 
received from God, or else by authority derived at first 
from their consent upon whose persons they impose 
laws, is no better than mere tyranny. Laws they are 
not therefore, which public approbation has not made 



Subsequently God's laws have been read in hu- 
man needs. This fits the modern, democratic 
conception which evaluates with life as the source 
and standard of authority. How vague, un- 
stable and undefined this new democratic au- 
thority is need not be discussed, but it should be 
observed that a humanitarian religion with hu- 
manity as object and source of authority, pre- 
supposes the higher authority on which all its 
various manifestations of life are forever de- 
pendent. Indeed! Christ came that we might 
have life and have it abundantly, but He de- 
clared paradoxically: "whosoever will save his 
life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life 
for my sake shall find it." Though man's deep- 
est needs are met in the Gospel, it deserves spe- 
cial notice that Christ always states; he that be- 
lieveth on me hath life everlasting. This pre- 
supposed element of faith rules rational interpre- 
tations regarding life out of court as authority 
over the same. This rationalistic tendency be- 
trays itself in "Modernism a Record and Re- 



NEEDS AND UTILITY 247 

view," which A. L. Lilley dedicates to George 
Tyrrell. He says in his epistle dedicatory to 
Tyrrell, who 1 when young left the Anglican com- 
munion for the Roman Catholic Church: 

"You have not for a moment thought it necessary 
or even possible to abandon the Church of your delib- 
erate adoption, even when quite recently you heard the 
voice of authority raised against you in formal con- 
demnation. You know too well the nature of a Church 
and the nature and limits of authority in a Church. 
For you a Church is a spirtiual fatherland, your due 
allegiance to which no authority can in the last resort 
either assess or guarantee. Authority indeed is essen- 
tial, but it discharges its special function only when it 
waits upon life and ministers to it. When it attempts 
to prescribe to life the limits within which it must move 
and beyond which it must not venture, it has ceased to 
be ministrant to life and is engaged, whether it knows it 
or not, in preparing death. Then it becomes a duty to 
resist it in its own interests, to resist it in order that it 
may renew its character and methods and become once 
again an authentic force of direction and control. The 
limits of coercive power which it may legitimately exer- 
cise are prescribed for it by the verdicts of life, as to 
what things have proved in general and continuous ex- 
perience to be morally hurtful. Yet these are just the 
things on which authority (perhaps wisely, for even 
here there may be some shrunken and distorted growth 
of life) has always borne most lightly; while with the 
obstinate blindness which has characterized it at many 



248 AUTHORITY 

a moment of its history it crushes the forces which would 
renew life and open out to it the way of progress. Au- 
thority through those who have wielded it has too often 
identified itself with accidental and temporary forms. 
At such times it is necessary for it to learn that its 
forms are of the things that can be shaken and must be 
shaken in order that the things which cannot be shaken, 
life and the authority which proceeds from it, may re- 
main. The rulers of every spiritual society need to 
learn from secular history the lesson that the best citi- 
zens of the temporal fatherland have often been those 
who resisted even to death the unlimited claims of some 
temporary form of authority arrogating to itself that 
divine right which was even then, through the chang- 
ing needs and conditions of life, passing to another 
form. Both in the temporal and the spiritual spheres 
authority proves its divine right by being limited and 
ministerial. When it becomes absolute, it has become 
already denied that right. It is the function of author- 
ity to keep life dependent upon God, and to that end 
to reverence and cherish those forward and upward 
movements of life in which the will of God is gradually 
declared. It is the temptation of authority to despise 
life or to ignore it, to identify its momentary will with 
the ultimate will of God which even inspires man's spir- 
itual growth and seeks expression through it. You 
have been condemned as the enemy of religious author- 
ity, indeed as the enemy of religion itself, because you 
have sought to recall authority to the sources of its 
strength and thus to restore to religious unity a world 
which existing forms and methods have been for long, 



NEEDS AND UTILITY 249 

and are now ever more and more rapidly, reducing to 
religious disintegration and decay. You will not be ar- 
rested in the work of enduring pith and moment to 
which you have been called, by this fiat of a day. 
Through you the dawn has at last broken for thousands 
of wearied souls who have battled all their lives, and 
battled hopelessly with the spectres of doubt and dark- 
ness. You have spoken for them the word of hope, so 
simple and obvious that, till you spoke it with the calm 
confidence of assured conviction, they dared not believe 
it to be true: 'The present is older and wiser and better 
than the past which it incorporates and transcends.* 
They will be with you in the long and patient effort, 
which you will not abandon or relax to save the ma j estic 
and glorious tradition of Roman Christianity from the 
narrow-hearted and ineffectual isolation from the living 
world to which it would condemn itself." 

The expressions in this passage which we ren- 
dered in italics suffice to bring out our above ob- 
servation. We wish, however, to make a few re- 
marks in regard to them. In the statement that 
"the present is older and wiser and better than 
the past which it incorporates and transcends" 
we lack the superficiality of much clamoring 
liberalism, which is born of a day, in that here the 
present is knit even constitutionally to the past, 
"which it incorporates and transcends." Thus 
the spirit of opposition is obviated. As Tyrrell 
himself states in "Through Scylla and Charyb- 
dis": 



250 AUTHORITY 

"For it is psychologically impossible for any individ- 
ual to get outside the social process which has made 
him what he is, as to form a judgment which shall at 
once be just and yet be contradictory to the social mind. 
Either he has blundered and misinterpreted the social 
mind, in which case it is only his liberty of error that is 
violated ; or he has interpreted it more deeply and truly 
than the average and official interpreters, in which case 
he differs from these, but does not contradict them, in- 
asmuch as his is only a stricter conformity to the same 
rule as they profess to obey" (p. 60). 

There is no reason why the present should 
transcend, or even necessarily incorporate the 
past. This on strict psychological grounds is at 
once quite plain. It is self-evident that one can- 
not get any conviction that comes from personal 
experience — and this personal and ethical ele- 
ment figures so largely in the religious sphere — 
before fulfilling the conditions upon which alone 
that experience can come, no matter what has 
gone on before. The social development is not 
so that means lead mechanically to the ends. 
Indeed, often the first are last and the last first. 
But it would seem that the writer thinks of 
truth's transcendency in time and in saying that 
the present incorporates and transcends the past, 
would add that the future will do this much more 
so. In this is evident the Romish conception 
which — to use Tyrrell's own words — considers 



NEEDS AND UTILITY 251 

"one of the most fundamental and distinctive 
principles of Catholicism is the subjection of the 
individual mind, will and sentiment in matters of 
religion to the collective mind, will, and senti- 
ment of the community; of the private to the 
Catholic conscience; in a word, the principle of 
authority" (p. 58). 

Against such a conception of authority we 
readily see the protest of persons of spiritual ap- 
prehension, as indeed the greatest in this church 
have broken through the sacramental ceremonies 
of the institutions. Augustine, Gottschalk, 
Savonarola, Pascal, Port-Royal and Jansenism 
and Calvin witness to a more purely spiritual 
conception than this visible church holds. Since 
Felicite de la Mennais the independent search has 
made some claims for the individual and spirits 
like Loisy and Tyrrell are in the wake of this 
great publicist. Reverence and piety are theirs, 
they are not kindred of the host of liberals who 
nowadays proclaim with cocksure pedantry the 
progressive "new truths" against the supersti- 
tions of an old outworn faith. De la Mennais, 
Loisy and Tyrrell are searching, because the 
visible church of Rome with her elaborate sacer- 
dotalism does not satisfy. There is something 
pathetic in the opening note of "Through 
Scylla and Charybdis" : "What I have here put 
together might be described as the history of a 



252 AUTHORITY 

religious, or rather philosophical, opinion. For 
an opinion, it is, and nothing more. I am much 
more certain that some other opinions are wrong 
than that this is right; and if anyone will show 
me a better, he shall be numbered among my 
benefactors." Anyone may readily observe the 
difference in temper from those objections 
against spirituality which President King of 
Oberlin College discusses in "The Seeming Un- 
reality of the Spiritual Life," and which he says, 
"come from an abstract intellectualism, from a 
crude sensationalism, and from an impossible 
hypothesizing of laws, and, in general, from a 
quite unwarrantable exaltation of the mathemati- 
cal-mechanical view of the world." JLilley con- 
cedes authority to be essential, but requires it to 
wait upon life. Now, as observed above, au- 
thority only ministers to life when it prescribes 
to it. Only in controlling it, is authority minis- 
trant to life. Life does not prescribe to itself its 
own authority. If it be the function of authority 
to keep life dependent upon God, then, indeed! 
this authority must in its forms speak to those 
whose faith does acknowledge it, with the abso- 
lute authenticating power of God. That this is 
not always recognized in the bewildering mass of 
formal religion is easily seen, especially when the 
emotional and aesthetic is mainly appealed to at 
the cost of a spiritual apprehension. "God is a 



NEEDS AND UTILITY 253 

spirit and those that worship Him must worship 
Him in spirit and in truth." Yet, in Tyrrell's 
own words: "Catholicism stands out as a religion 
of the whole man against the pedantry of a 
purely reasonable religion that would abolish the 
luxuriant — doubtless at times too luxuriant — 
wealth of symbolism in favor of a 'ministry of the 
word' alone, taking 'word' in its baldest literal 
sense ; and that would limit the converse between 
God and man to what can be uttered in spoken 
or written language." He goes on to say: 

"There is, then, no small pedantry of intellectualism 
in the notion that worship in the spirit and in truth 
must necessarily be conducted in circumstances of 
sought-out plainness, and divested of all appeal to the 
senses, the imagination, and the emotions ; of all sac- 
raments — and symbols — a worship which would suffer 
no more of God's message to enter the soul than can 
find its way through the narrow slit of common sense, 
and clothe itself in the stiff primness of colorless prose. 
Of such worship Christ and His apostles — Jews as they 
were and lovers of the Temple with its soul-stirring 
symbolism — knew nothing, nor has any religion ever 
thriven long on such a fallacy of puritanism strictly 
adhered to. The tendency of puritanism is to reduce 
Christianity to its lowest terms ; to cast off all that has 
grown out of, or on to its primitive expression ; to 
bring it down to the level of the lowest and most uni- 
versal spiritual capacity; to make it democratic in just 
what seems to us the wrong and popular sense of the 



254 AUTHORITY 

term. For it is to favor one section of the church at 
the expense of another; to starve the higher and rarer 
capacity in the interests of the lower and commoner; to 
assume the spiritual equality of God's sons means an 
equality of gifts and graces ; to forget that the Chris- 
tian demos includes and needs every grade and kind of 
spirituality from the lowest to the highest. For this 
reason as well as for its severe rationality puritanism, 
in spite of its studied abstract simplicity, has always 
been the religion of a certain class, and a certain tem- 
perament, and a certain culture. Whereas Catholicism, 
in spite of or rather because of its vast complexity, has 
been, as no other, a religion both of the crowds and 
masses, and also of the intellectual, the cultivated, the 
mystical, the aesthetic minority" (p. 38 ff). 

Tyrrell proceeds to discuss this theme in con- 
nection with his impressions of St. Etienne 
du Mont, the most devotional catholic church in 
Paris, where I myself was struck with a singular 
contrast in pious worship to the other cathedrals 
which offer almost the spectacle of being public 
monuments, utilized by the church. "Moreover, 
we find in such a church as St. Etienne the ex- 
pression, not of individual, but of a collective 
spirit, world-wide and ancient, of which it is the 
product. Everything there speaks of com- 
munion with a great international religious or- 
ganism; with the remote past of Catholicism; and 
through Catholicism, with the past of those older 



NEEDS AND UTILITY 255 

religions out of which it has grown. It (St. 
Etienne du Mont) is a visualized and sensible ex- 
pression of the religious experience of the best 
part of humanity, by means of which the re- 
ligious sense of the individual is wakened, stimu- 
lated, and informed; and his consciousness of 
solidarity with the general life of mankind deep- 
ened and strengthened. Every such renewed 
consciousness of communion with Catholicism 
is a sacramental reinforcement of the spiritual 
and "over-individual" elements of his interior 
life — an inward grace mediated through an out- 
ward sign" (p. 37). As he states on page 39: 
"Religion aims at communicating God to man, 
at filling the soul with the inexhaustible riches of 
divine truth and goodness and loveliness. It 
cannot put the infinite into a nutshell; it cannot 
put the whole truth into three words. Though 
it may — and often does — sin against simplicity, 
both by undue compression and undue diff usive- 
ness all the language at its disposal is not enough 
for what it has got to convey." We elaborate 
somewhat on this ritualism and social setting of 
service because the Roman Catholic Church pre- 
sents these claims, even in those who drift away 
from her accepted standards, as Tyrrell is a case 
in point, and one well qualified to formulate 
them. They need, however, no refutation, espe- 
cially since Tyrrell gives us on p. 49 a striking 



256 AUTHORITY 

passage in which he discloses a susceptibility to a 
deeper and spiritual view of Authority. "As for 
the long and sordid record of clerical scandal that 
we find in Church history, the persistent recru- 
descences of avarice, ambition, and licentiousness 
in the ministers of the sanctuary, it is hard to see 
what more it can prove against Catholicism than 
the like phenomena in the ministers of law and 
government can prove against law and govern- 
ment. The attempt to deny or mitigate such 
charges seems to imply the worst of 'sacerdotal- 
ism' — namely, the right of priests in virtue of 
their merely official and ecclesiastical superiority 
to that honor which belongs solely to personal, 
ethical, and 'charismatic' superiority. It is 
all-important to keep distinct the invisible — and 
spiritual hierarchy from the visible — and official 
hierarchy of the church; to see in the latter but 
the symbol and servant of the former; to see in 
the former Christ Himself, vicariously repre- 
sented by the latter; to distinguish the pre-con- 
stitutional formless church from the governmen- 
tal form which it has elaborated for its own apos- 
tolic needs. Deplorable as they are, the corrup- 
tions of the official hierarchy keeps this vital dis- 
tinction clear before the Catholic, and save us 
from man-worship." 

It is evident that the whole question, in spite 
of all confusion on the subject, turns on a spiritual 



NEEDS AND UTILITY 257 

conception. That the whole Romanish machin- 
ery of sacramental symbolism is pleaded to be 
needed or helpful for spiritual understanding is 
an admission of the spiritual poverty of the 
church, and similarly is it a sign, that the 
Protestant Churches are at a low ebb where 
they resort to the ritualistic props of religion. 
It is all an effort to bolster up the felt 
unreality of the spiritual life, which Presi- 
dent King discusses in his popular lectures be- 
fore Yale Divinity School on "The Seeming Un- 
reality of the Spiritual Life." He opens with 
the remark: "Yes, but why has no one ever seen 
God?" It is Philip's old question: "Show us the 
father." Does it avail "to mediate an inward 
grace through an outward sign," to "communi- 
cate God to man" by all sorts or ritual, and sym- 
bols, to go into a sanctuary with the cultivated 
sense that a "collective spirit" world-wide and 
ancient is expressed in the worship? How in- 
finitely loftier rings the truth that "God is in 
His holy temple," and in our worship to stand 
in His august presence with none other than the 
High-priest Jesus Christ mounting guard 
over the conscience. Calvinists are not con- 
trolled by needs, rather would we stand under 
the authority of God's law, graciously placed in 
our hearts by the son of His love, Jesus Christ, 
our Lord. No congregation or church is 



258 AUTHORITY 

charged with communicating God to man. He 
is self -revealing through, or in spite of the visible 
means which we may devise, but surely operates 
even by the concession of the ritualists in spiritual 
manner. He is not bound or conditioned in the 
work of grace, and no respecter of persons. All 
these familiar truths should shatter forever the 
assumption of priestly devices, were it not that 
the Jew is still strong with us. Inward grace 
may be expressed by outward sign, but the medi- 
ation of grace is never bound to ritualistic or 
sacramental practices. The oft-repeated re- 
mark, that the stern, austere conception of 
spirituality, which dispenses largely with the 
aesthetic and emotional as avenues of worship, 
limits itself "to a certain class, and a certain tem- 
perament and a certain culture" is wholly false, 
a historic review of Protestantism is sufficient to 
reveal the bareness of this assertion. Does a 
closer examination of this ritualistic, ceremonial 
procedure in the service of the church not corrob- 
orate this view? 

Lessing asked: "Besteht uberhaupt etwas das 
nicht bedeutet?" and Longfellow said in "The 
harvest moon": 

"All things are symbols : the eternal shows 
Of nature have their image in the mind." 

Thus it is that we may speak of "a sympathetic 



NEEDS AND UTILITY 259 

fallacy of nature," positing of sentiments, feel- 
ings and meanings in the world around us. 
Definite forms of course and the pictorial repre- 
sentation, the ceremonial acts have a specific af- 
fective power upon the imagination. We need 
not decide which it is most with the beholder 
a reading into, as in "the sympathetic fallacy of 
nature" or an interpretation of some idea-repre- 
senting form. This depends largely on the con- 
creteness of the symbol. In the service of re- 
ligion, by association as well as by their more 
definite meaning the symbols, in order to be help- 
ful to the ends they serve, are more specific and 
concrete. In the jargon of the modern school, a 
fixed symbol however, be it in act, or form, or 
pictorial representation, cannot well be a lasting 
expression of progressive, expanding, yea! revo- 
lutionizing thought. And in the nature of the 
case this attempt at visualizing the unseen does 
not tend to spirituality. The main issue laid 
bare in ritual and ceremony is the appeal to the 
senses, the aesthetic element pressed into service 
as an avenue for the spiritual life, with an emo- 
tional response that arouses rather than sustains 
the Christian responsibility. For this reason — 
though not as yet in pictorial and ceremonial ap- 
peal, except such as processions, parades, and 
meetings of a more or less undesigned, and there- 
fore incidental sort — revivalist resort to this more 



260 AUTHORITY 

sensual appeal. In Sunday-schools the banner- 
class and hundred and one devices to render con- 
crete our Christian allegiance to the Master 
grows more and more, and leans stronger upon 
the outward sign in proportion as inward grace 
is absent. Yet the outward sign far from being 
a guarantee for the mediation of inward grace 
renders us dependent on it in our spiritual as- 
pirations. Our catholic brethren abuse the ar- 
gument, the appeal to the senses is not excluded 
in the puritan service, but God is not sensually 
apprehended, an emotional appeal is not dis- 
carded, but the spiritual understanding means 
more, the many devices to render concrete the 
spiritual and unseen are perfectly legitimate 
when they only serve in furthering spiritual life 
and spiritual understanding which they mostly 
fail to do. Moreover we require the catholic 
brethren and those of the reformed confession 
with ritualistic and ceremonial tendencies to face 
squarely the fact that the plea in favor of sym- 
bolizing the unseen is made in behalf of a de- 
ficiency in spiritual understanding. If it is not 
well to give strong meat unto babes, does it fol- 
low that those who crave meat should be fed on 
milk? In short, then, needs should not enter the 
sanctuary to control the service there, leading the 
worship away from "the ministry of the Word." 



CHAPTER XXV 

THE SOURCE AND GUARANTEE OF 
AUTHORITY 

Christianity interpreted as a mere historic fact 
cannot be reduced to a series of events, the signal 
success of which had its origin in an unimportant, 
cause. When Harnack in his "Die Ausbreitung 
des Christentums" seeks to explain the spread of 
Christianity by arguing that it won the world to 
itself by absorbing all the foreign elements with 
which it came in contact, he is consistent with his 
subjective standpoint. But it may readily be 
seen that this explanation is made at the cost of 
Christianity itself. It amounts practically to 
saying that Christianity's conquest of the world 
is a mere appearance. Real Christianity never 
ran a historic course. Harnack thus must be at 
a loss to understand the hysteric accusation of 
Christianity of Nietzsche for checking the bru- 
tality of human instincts. Historic Christianity 
is merely a mixture of different pagan elements 
on which the cross of the early Christians was 
set. How this became possible is difficult to un- 
derstand on Harnack's supposition. One is re- 
minded of Nietzsche's bitter sneer: "In Wirk- 

261 



262 AUTHORITY 

lichkweit gab es nur ein Christ und der starb am 
Kreuz"; and on the other hand of Professor 
Freeman's remark: "You say, Am I still a be- 
liever? Certainly. That is, I believe the Chris- 
tion religion to be from God, in a sense beyond 
that in which all things are from God. One can- 
not study history without seeing this. As I said 
in one of my published lectures : Tor Caesar Au- 
gustus to be led to worship a crucified Jew was a 
greater miracle than the cleaving of rocks or the 
raising of the dead.' " 

Dr. Geerhardus Vos, discussing the causes 
which have been operative in spreading the opin- 
ion that Christian faith is in its essence independ- 
ent of historical facts, says: "The aim of modern 
historical research is to view developments from 
the inside, to catch the subjective tone and color 
of the period, to study it pre-eminently from its 
human point of view. Applying this to Sacred 
History and the Scriptures leads almost inevi- 
tably to a wrong distribution of emphasis. In 
redemption and revelation naturally not the hu- 
main, subjective side, not the religious views and 
sentiments of men, stand in the foreground, but 
the great objective acts and interpositions of 
God, the history as it is in itself, not as it re- 
flected itself in the mind of man. Facts, rather 
than the spirit of times or the consciousness of 
periods, should be here the primary object of 



GUARANTEE OF AUTHORITY 263 

investigation." Indeed, though we admit the 
human factor as determining the forms of Chris- 
tianity in its historic course, it ought to be clear 
that unless objective reality is recognized as its 
ground, yea, Christ as its cause and center, Chris- 
tian theology will be cast adrift on the eddying 
tides of human opinion. 

Dr. Forsyth argues eloquently for "the Cross 
as the Final Seat of Authority." (Contempor- 
ary Review, October, 1899.) 

He elaborates the idea that the cross is what 
God has done, does, and will do in an eternal act 
of grace for the sin-stricken world. The source 
and seat of man's final authority is, therefore, 
God at the heart of man (common grace), espe- 
cially where man responds by faith to His gra- 
cious revelation (special grace). His words are 
a fitting close to the drift and temper of this 
discussion. 

"We must have for these days an authority which is 
in its nature emancipatory and not repressive, empow- 
ering and not enfeebling. That authority is the Re- 
deemer's. The object of human faith must be the 
source of human freedom, individual or social. Society 
can only be saved by what saves the soul. The evan- 
gelical contention is that that object of faith is the Re- 
deemer, directly and alone. It is the straightness of 
the Cross, that is the condition of critical, speculative, 
and social freedom for the world. 



264 AUTHORITY 

"The real and final seat of authority is Evangelical. 
It is the cross of Jesus Christ. Neither soul nor society 
knows anything as a final authority but Him crucified. 
The sovereign and the cement of society is the Saviour 
of the soul. That rules man which rules the conscience ; 
and that rules the conscience which forgives it and re- 
deems. The conscience is not the ruler, but only the 
ruler's throne. The center of authority is the world's 
central moral personality and order. It is the act of 
redemption. It is not the ideal but the Redeemer of 
the conscience that is its King. The cross is the seat 
of moral empire and human unity. There is more una- 
nimity among the saved about the Cross than there is 
among the enlightened about truth. The believer has 
an authority for society that the thinker has not. 

"The absolute is the only final authority, and we touch 
that by the moral of personal faith alone. Man is a 
free creature even more than the rational; the lower 
animals are more rational than free. And it must be 
in the region of his distinctive freedom that his King 
resides ; it is there he needs and finds his authority. It 
exists for free will rather than for free thought. For 
knowledge and thought there may be order and limit, 
but there is no authority, which, in the real, absolute, 
and final sense, exists for man as moral not as intel- 
lectual. 

"Something is at once the final victory and the present 
power; some purpose runs through all things as the 
truth in all and the crown upon all; some will which 
turns mere matter into purpose, which elects to proceed 
in the way of selection, and sustains it in the way of 



GUARANTEE OF AUTHORITY 265 

communion. We must find the end of living in the 
living God, the goal of all is the stay of all. And this 
is a power which we have only in the revelation of the 
Cross and its foregone conquest. The empirical world 
is far too vast, complex, and tragical now for any 
philosophy of history to surmise and the categories of 
an irresistible ideal imbedded in thought. We must 
turn for our certainty elsewhere where philosophy fails 
as a foundation. Our chief knowledge is that whereby 
we are known. We are cast upon faith, neither as a 
pis- alter, nor as a leap in the dark, upon a faith which 
finds in the historic work of the super-historic Christ 
an absolute warrant of the Kingdom of God as the close 
and crown of all. Glory is but the consummation of 
grace, and grace arises in the very heart of nature and 
history though it springs out of neither. The Kingdom 
of God is to faith the immanent truth of things, their 
soul and nisus, subtly, slowly supreme on earth, and 
eternal in the heavens. In Jesus Christ we have the 
final cause of history, and the incarnation of that King- 
dom of God, which is the only teleology large enough 
for the whole world." (London Quarterly, Oct., 1905.) 



INDEX OF AUTHORS 



Abbott (Lyman) : 37. 
Anselm (St.) : 234. 
Aquinus (St. Thomas of) : 

85. 
Arnold (Matthew) : 46, 123. 
Athanasius: 149. 
Augustine (St.) : 65. 

Bain: 175. 

Baldwin (Mark). 6, 48, 49. 

Balfour: 52, 99. 

Ballard: 212. 

Balzac (Honore de) : 76. 

Bampton (John) : 234. 

Bargy: 163. 

Baur: 135. 

Bavinck: 186, 220. 

Beaulieu (Anatole Leroy) : 

22. 
Bettex: 184. 
Blackstone (Sir William) : 

16. 
Bowen: 135. 
Bradley: 121. 
Brooks (Phillips): 13. 
Briihl (Levy): 193. 
Bruno: 135. 
Bryce (James) : 25. 
Buelow (Prince von) : 36. 
Butler: 115. 

Caird: 126. 



Caldecott: 86. 
Calvin: 203, 149. 
Cannegieter: 236. 
Carol (Lewis) : 44. 
Chapman: 206. 
Chesterton: 116. 
Clifford: 173. 
Clough: 166. 
Coe: 188. 
Condorcet: 3. 
Comte: 113. 
Corneille: 167. 

Darwin: 52. 
Dennert: 53. 
Desmoulins: 62. 
Dewey: 194, 224. 
Dickens: 46. 
Doumergue: 209. 
Doumic: 42. 
Durkheim: 40. 
Dyde: 127. 

Ebrard: 191. 

Eliot: 91. 

Eucken: 102, 216, 233. 

Ferri: 6. 

Feuerback: 134, 137. 

Fevre: 23. 

Fichte: 5, 87, 131, 235. 

Flint: 101. 



267 



268 



INDEX OF AUTHORS 



Fogel (Philip) : 40. 

Forrest: 240. 

Forsyth: 53, 143, 152, 156, 

167, 208, 263. 
Fouillee: 61, 67, 81. 
Freeman: 139, 262. 
Fries: 129. 
Fullerton: 227. 

Gans: 127- 

Garner: 108. 

Genesis (1:27): 174. 

Gess: 191. 

Guy an: 55. 

Gibbons: 66, 79, 143. 

Giddings: 10. 

Goethe: 43, 101, 202, 137. 

Gordon (George A.) : 1 

Greene, Jr. (W. Brenton) : 

235. 
Greer (Bishop): 79. 
Gregory (Pope) : 34. 

Haeckel: 102. 
Halevy: 101. 
Hall (Francis J.) : 115, 117, 

216. 
Hall (Stanley): 189. 
Hamilton (Sir William)?: 

115. 
Harcourt (Duke of) :21. 
Harnack: 202, 261. 
Hartmann (Eduard von) : 

198. 
Heath (Bawden) : 222. 
Hebrews; (xi:3): 119, 

(xi:i): 204. 



Hegel: 122, 124, 125, 128, 

130, 132. 
Helmholz: 175. 
Hill (David Jaynes) : 19. 
Hbffding: 56, 195, 198, 199. 
Holland: 73, 229. 
Hooker,: 245. 
Hugo (Victor) : 76. 

Jacobus: 207, 

James (William): 2, 3, 11, 
44, 90, 148, 171, 173, 
175, 176, 177, 179, 188, 
214, 215, 217, 218, 221, 
224. 

Jevons: 229. 

John (xviii:38): 240. 

Kalthoff: 137. 

Kant: 121, 124, 199, 225, 

226. 
Kassowitz: 53. 
Kephart: 79. 
King: 252, 257. 
Kapper: 102. 
Krabbe: 109. 
Krause: 129. 
Kuyper (Abraham) : 34, 

69, 70. 

Lacy: 110. 

Ladd: 39, 58, 84, 137, 138. 

La Fontaine: 191. 

Lavaleye: 108. 

Le Bon: 189. 

Lessing: 258. 

Liddon: 209. 



INDEX OF AUTHORS 



269 



Lilley: 247. 
Lincoln: 131. 
Loisy: 65, 202, 243. 
Longfellow: 258. 
Lowell: 64. 
Luther: 137. 
Lyman: 180, 182. 

Mac Arthur (R. Stuart) : 79. 
McCall Mission: 190. 
McPheeters: 163. 
Maurice: 51, 69, 109, 122, 

183. 
Mansel: 121. 
Martensen: 191, 197. 
Menzel: 129. 
Marheineke: 129. 
Martineau: 38. 
Marx (Karl): 135. 
Matthew: 169. 
Maupassant (Guy de) : 46. 
Mill (John Stuart) : 94, 110. 
Mirabeau: 89. 
Moberly: 117. 
Monod (Leopold) : 237. 
Montague: 110. 
Montesquieu: 108. 
Miiller (Max): 91. 

Newman (John Henry) : 95. 
Nietzsche: 110, 201. 

Olmstead (C. Tyler): 239. 
Ormond (A. T.) : 83. 

Palmer: 71, 199. 
Parkhurst: 79. 



Pascal: 49. 

Patton (Francis Landey) : 

211. 
Poulin: 209. 
Paulsen: 60, 102. 
Pauly: 52. 
Perry: 145, 182. 
Pollock (Sir Frederick) : 

72. 
Pope: 135. 
Powell: 192. 
Proverbs (iv:23): 236. 

Rashdall (Hastings) : 43. 
Raymond (B. P.): 79. 
Remensnyder: 79. 
Renan: 65. 
Reville: 115. 

Reymond (Du Bois) : 173. 
Ritschie: 110, 192. 
Ritschl: 96. 
Rittelmeyer: 98. 
Romanes: 201. 
Romans (i:20): 119. 
Rousseau: 110, 111. 
Royce (Josiah) : 43, 99, 134, 

232. 
Riickert: 68. 

Sabatier: 113, 118. 
Sainte Beuve: 141. 
Schmiedel: 138. 
Schopenhauer: 93, 125. 
Scherer: 188. 
Schiller: 111, 182. 
Schurer: 72, 110. 



270 



INDEX OF AUTHORS 



Seth (Andrew): 101, 120. 
Simon (Saint) : 3. 
Smith (Monroe): 153. 
Smyth (Newman) : 79. 
Spencer (Herbert) : 9, 52. 
Stanton: 93. 
Starbuck: 188. 
Sterrett: 108, 128, 178. 
Strauss: 135. 
Suderman: 41. 
Swete: 97. 

Tennyson: 87. 
Thomasius: 191. 
Trendelenburg: 127- 
Tuft (James H.) : 2. 
Turner (Sir James) : 63. 
Tyrrell: 249, 253. 



Vincent (G. E.) : 11. 
Virchow: 102. 
Visscher: 8, 217. 
Vries (Hugo de) : 52. 
Voltaire: 135. 
Vos (Geerhardus) : 262. 

Wesley (John) : 80. 

Westminster Confession : 
118. 

Wildenbruch (von): 31. 

William the Great, Em- 
peror of Germany: 32, 35. 

Wundt: 102. 



Ziegler: 102. 

Zueblin (Charles): 17. 



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